The Conscience of the King
Chapter 9 - A Common Disaster

"Look straight at the coming disaster,
Realize what you've lost.
You keep handing out horseshoes,
Horseshoes have gotta be tossed..."
	--Moxy Fruvous



	"...So I picked up my backpack /again/ and left the train station,
except by then all the shuttles had stopped running, and I would be /damned/
if I gave in and called back to the dorm..." Reeve was up to his elbows in
dish suds, having rolled up his sleeves and started to tackle the mound of
dishes left over from the night's meal; Rufus sat on the counter next to
him, glass of Scotch in one hand and cigarette in the other, grinning at the
story.

	"And then what?" Rufus asked, reaching out a hand to rescue one of
Reeve's sleeves before it slipped back down his arm. He'd offered to help
with the clean-up, since Reeve had cooked dinner; Reeve had sensed, however,
that it was an offer made more out of politeness than any true desire on
Rufus's part to get his hands dirty, and had declined the help. 

	"Thanks. Anyway. I went over to information and asked them what time
the shuttle would start running over to the college again, and they told me
six AM. Considering that it was three AM at that point and one of the
junkies in the train station was eyeing me with that look in his eye that
said he thought I'd probably make a good dinner -- oh /fuck/." Both men
jumped slightly as the shrill sound of Reeve's pager filled the kitchen;
Rufus, who had long ago tired of the noise the damn thing made and set it to
vibrate mode, slapped his hip half a second later. 

	"I /hate/ it when this thing goes off," Rufus bitched, unclipping
the pager from his pocket and then reaching for Reeve's to silence it as
well. Reeve felt his pulse quicken slightly at the nimble fingers at his
waist, and spared a second to hope that whatever summons was being sent
wouldn't interfere for the /rest/ of his plans for the night. They'd planned
for an evening of work, true, but even evenings of work had to end
/sometime/...

	His hopes sank a little when Rufus eyed his pager suspiciously and
groaned. "Oh, Ramuh spare me."

	"What is it?" Reeve put down the dish-sponge and turned the hot
water down a bit, rinsed the soap off of his hands, then craned his neck to
see the tiny display over Rufus's shoulder. The angle was wrong for the
backlit LED, and all he saw was the tan screen.

	"Emergency board meeting. In the name of all the ancient gods, we
haven't had one of those since the war ended."

	Reeve grabbed the dishtowel and dried his hands. "Uh-oh. You don't
think that Wutai launched some kind of attack or something?"

	Rufus frowned. "The war ended over a year ago. Why would they have
waited this long? We /crushed/ them, Reeve." Reeve knew; he also knew that
Rufus had supported dismantling Wutai's remaining military and imposing
strict sanctions on them. He personally had thought that a more gracious
approach to the conquered nation was in order, but he hadn't dared breathe a
word of that suggestion, either in staff meetings or to Rufus directly. "And
they wouldn't have done anything today; it's nine o'clock Friday night here,
but it's Saturday morning there, and Saturday is their day of rest. I
/seriously/ doubt that even the prospect of hitting back at Shinra would
disrupt centuries of tradition." 

	He leapt off his seat on the counter with an easy grace, heading
over to his nylon laptop bag, where his cellphone was stashed. "Lemme just
call over and let the old man know that we're halfway across the city and
we'll be there as soon as we can."

	Reeve nodded. "I'll grab my shoes." He tossed the dishtowel on the
counter and used one sock-clad foot to push Cait Sith out of the way before
he stepped on the cat's tail. Cait let out an insulted little "Eeh!" noise
and begrudgingly stepped aside.

	Rufus nodded absently as he dialed, then paused while the other end
of the conversation picked up the phone. "Sir? It's Rufus. What's the
problem?" His face tightened and his eyes narrowed as he crossed the room
and picked up his own shoes, dropping back down on the couch to fumble with
the laces as he tried to keep the phone against his ear with his shoulder.
"Yes, sir, I know that's why you called the meeting, but I --" He pressed
his lips together. "Yes, sir, but I'm halfway across the city at Reeve's
apartment for dinner, and it'll take us a good twenty minutes to get back
over to the --" 

	By now, Reeve could recognize the beginnings of a Rufus temper
explosion. The reason that not many people could was that it didn't start
off with anger; it started out with ice. "No, sir, I'll leave as soon as I
get off the phone with you; I simply wanted to know if there was something I
could accomplish while I was on my way over to --" Reeve could practically
hear President Shinra's angry tones, even through the tiny phone that Rufus
held. "Yes, sir." Click.

	"That didn't sound good," Reeve offered, tentatively.

	"It wasn't. Fuck." Rufus took deep breaths. "And we took the train
over tonight, instead of taking my car, so we're going to have to go and
commandeer a fucking cab, and the old man's got some kind of bug up his ass
about something, and he wouldn't tell me one word about what kind of
'emergency' meeting it was, and I do /not/ need this shit right now." 

	"I'll call the cab," Reeve said, with a little resigned sigh, and
went to grab the phone from the kitchen to do so.

			-- * --

	They got several dirty looks when they made their way into the
boardroom fifteen minutes later (Rufus had promised the cabbie a hundred-gil
bonus if he'd managed to get them cross-town in under fifteen minutes; the
cabbie had grinned and floored it). Reeve had suggested that they show up
several minutes apart; Rufus had sighed and waved a hand. "Won't matter,"
he'd said briefly. "The old man already knows I was over there."

	Reeve let his gaze skim across the table as he crossed the room to
his usual seat, trying to assess the mood. Heidegger looked irritated;
Palmer, bored. Scarlet's hair was loose and she was clad in a loose silk
kimono that made Reeve avert his eyes; her eyes, too, were roaming the room,
and they lit upon Reeve, narrowed, and moved on. Hojo, strangely enough, was
also present; even stranger, he seemed angry, and most of that anger seemed
to be directed across the table in Heidegger's direction. President Shinra,
seated at the head of the table, tapped his fingers against the table
impatiently as Rufus slid into his seat at the foot of the table.

	"That's seven," the president said, his tone clipped and impatient.
"Where's Tseng?"

	Scarlet answered, even as Reeve started a bit; the Tarx were only
invited to emergency board meetings when there would be work for them to do.
"He's on his way, sir."

	Reeve flicked his eyes down the table to Rufus, asking wordlessly
what was going on; Rufus's lips pressed together a little and one shoulder
twitched in a nearly-imperceptable shrug. The president drummed his fingers
a little more; he looked as if he were about to say something, then closed
his mouth again, waiting less-than-patiently.

	No one else dared to say anything for the two minutes it took before
Tseng opened the door and slipped through it, closing it behind him and
taking a step to the right to stand guard next to the door. "Sir," Tseng
said, with a cool nod to the president. "I apologize for my tardiness."

	The president nodded in acknowledgement and rose to pace back and
forth at the head of the table. "What I am about to say is to be treated
with the strictest confidence. It is classified at the highest possible
level, and if I discover that anything from this meeting is public knowledge
in the company, or worse, in the general public, the individual responsible
will be terminated. Is that clear?"

	Reeve swallowed; something about the president's eyes made it clear
that he wasn't speaking of a transgressor's /employment/. He nodded, and he
saw the others around the table doing the same.

	President Shinra met the eyes of each board member in turn, holding
that gaze for a moment each, and then nodded. "All right. Simon, would you
care to inform the other board members?"

	When Hojo spoke, his voice contained as much of the suppressed anger
as his body language did. "Nibelheim has been destroyed. Sephiroth is
missing, and must be presumed dead."

	Reeve had been looking at Hojo; he turned his head, quickly, to look
back at Rufus, just in time to see the shock and disbelief mutate to rage,
then get locked away behind a cool and distant expression that Reeve had not
seen on Rufus's face in quite some time. 

	"What?" shrieked Heidegger as Hojo finished speaking; Heidegger
leaned forward over his paunch to place his palms on the table and stare at
Hojo, disbelievingly. "I sent him out there on an assignment that -- that
/you/ could have accomplished. What the hell happened?"

	Hojo's hands were steepled in front of him; Reeve wondered if anyone
else was close enough to Hojo to notice that the knuckles were white, that
the tendons stood out on the backs of Hojo's hands, as if the scientist were
struggling to control himself. "Preliminary reports are unreliable, but seem
to indicate that it was some sort of madness on Sephiroth's part. The town
was destroyed by repeated use of high-level Fire materia. There were no
survivors from the town itself, but the reactor and the Shinra mansion just
outside the town appear to be unscathed."

	"Was the body found?" Rufus's voice was soft enough to almost go
unheard, and Reeve winced at the taut control he heard in it.

	The president frowned. "Don't interrupt Professor Hojo, Rufus."

	"/Was the body found/?" Rufus leaned forward, intently; his eyes
were twin flames of sapphire.

	Hojo barely spared a glance down towards Rufus's end of the table.
"Not as of yet. We are dispatching a team to Nibelheim with as much haste as
possible."

	The president leaned forward again. "Tseng, I want your monkeys in
on this. We need to keep this as quiet as we possibly can. I don't want even
a word of what actually happened so much as whispered anywhere in Midgar, do
you all understand me?"

	"Rather difficult, sir," Scarlet mused. "While Nibelheim is an
isolated community, there are bound to be Shinra employees who hailed from
there, and wish to return home at some point. Surely, when they find that
the town is destroyed, there'll be talk --"

	"Which there would be," the president interrupted, smugly, "if the
town was destroyed."

	Scarlet frowned. "But you just told us --"

	"And if you would let me finish," Shinra said, with a frown, "you'd
know why. Tseng, you'll coordinate the reconstruction. I want that town
picture-perfect, you understand? I want a native of that town to be able to
walk into the reconstruction and not be able to tell the difference."

	Reeve was having trouble following the president's leaps of alleged
logic; apparently he wasn't the only one. "Sir?" Tseng questioned. It was
polite and cool, but Reeve could hear the underlying question of "what the
fuck?"

	Shinra's eyes narrowed. "Are none of you paying attention? We're
rebuilding the town. Precisely as it was before it was destroyed. We can't
replace the people, obviously, but we can put some others over there. Just
make it happen, all right, Tseng? Don't worry about the cost."

	"Would you mind telling me what the point of that is? Sir?" Rufus's
anger was growing more and more audible; Scarlet turned distant eyes on him
and smirked, just a bit. "We're going to spend millions of gil to -- rebuild
some town out in the middle of nowhere, just because --"

	"Because we can't afford to have anyone know of this incident. Be
/quiet/, Rufus. I am not finished speaking." Rufus looked as if he wanted to
say something back at his father, but subsided; Reeve could see the clench
of his jaw as he sat back. 

	~God. I'd've punched the old fat fuck by now. How the hell can Rufus
stand letting the old man talk to him like that?~ Reeve had questions of his
own, but given the reception of previous interruptions, deemed it a better
idea to keep them until the old man was done. Rufus looked as if he was
thinking better of the same thought, but kept his mouth shut.

	"Now. As I was saying. Doctor Hojo will be joining the
reconstruction efforts--" ~What?~ "-- as he has had experience with the
town. Tseng, you will offer him full support. Meanwhile, Heidegger, the men
on that mission will be carried on the books as Missing. As far as records
are concerned, they simply disappeared."

	Heidegger nodded. Reeve felt the urge to pinch himself; was any of
this even /happening/? He felt like he'd dropped down the rabbit hole.
~We're all mad here, in-fucking-deed.~

	The president folded his hands over each other on the table and
leaned back. "As far as Shinra is concerned, this incident never happened.
Is that all clear?" 

	"Sir?" Reeve could hear his own voice before he was even conscious
of speaking. And he couldn't quite believe that he had the audacity to ask
what he was asking, but it was perhaps his best chance to find what those
missing spots on the blueprints were hiding. "Request permission to
accompany the team to Nibelheim to inspect the reactor for damage."

	Shinra didn't even look over in his direction. "Denied. Any other
questions?"

	"I have a question," Rufus said, slowly. Reeve shot a glance down
the table, trying to communicate with his eyes that whatever Rufus was about
to say was just Not A Good Idea, but Rufus wasn't looking back at him;
father and son locked eyes across the table, and Reeve could swear that
sparks flew. 

	Shinra sighed. "Yes, Rufus?"

	"What in the name of all the old gods do you think you're /doing/?"
Rufus's voice fairly crackled with anger, and Reeve winced. "You've never
been noted for particularly caring about your employees, but in case you
didn't notice, one of Shinra's darlings has just /disappeared/, taking an
entire town with him, and all we're going to do is sweep it all under the
rug and play a giant game of let's-pretend-it-never-happened? Respectfully,
/sir/, this is a ridiculous idea. It is impossible for a global corporation
to stick its fingers in its collective ears and announce loudly that
something never happened --"

	"That is /more/ than enough." The president brought one fist down on
the table. "You all have your orders. Tseng, Hojo, the reconstruction team
will be assembled on the garage level at 0600. You are all dismissed." As
everyone assembled around the table rose to go, the president added, "Except
for you, Rufus. I have additional orders for you." 

	Reeve stopped in mid-turn, casting a desperate glance over at Rufus
-- a glance that the president didn't miss. "I said /dismissed/, Mister
Brannon," Shinra snapped, and Reeve bit his lip and turned the rest of the
way to go, hoping that whatever the old man had to say, Rufus would keep his
temper. ~The last thing we need is an all-out war between the two of them,~
he thought. ~The very last thing. Dear gods ... what the hell is going on
here?~

	Strong fingers closed around his arm just as he exited the
boardroom, and Reeve yelped in astonishment. "Shh," hissed Tseng, falling
into step quickly beside Reeve. "Shut up and listen. Go down to the
concourse level, pick up a few pizzas -- the pizza place doesn't close until
after midnight -- and meet me up in the Tarx lounge in twenty minutes. I
need to roust Rude out of bed and Reno out of the bars. Got it?"

	~Oh, in the name of all that's holy! Do I /look/ like a takeout
boy?~ Reeve could feel uncharacteristic anger beginning to build; he /hated/
not knowing what the hell was going on. "What the hell do you need me for?"

	"Are you stupid or do you just do a good imitation of it?" The
insult was almost pleasant. "We've got a lot of shit to do and maybe eight
hours to do it in. You've proven that you're at least relatively competent,
and you probably think that the old man has flipped his lid about as badly
as I do right now. Right now, there are maybe four sane people in this
entire damn building, and you and me are two of them." They reached the
elevators, and Tseng reached out and hit the Down button. "Rufus will know
where we are. I'll see you in twenty." 

	And with that, Tseng disappeared into the elevator, leaving Reeve to
boggle at the closing doors behind him.

	"Evening, Reeve," cooed Scarlet as she sauntered up behind him,
headed for the other bank of elevators, the ones that headed to the
residential tower. Reeve eyed her warily; he didn't trust her one bit, not
after the stunt she'd pulled at the Yule ball.

	"Evening," he replied, warily. She just kept going, and Reeve hit
the Down button himself. He winced a bit as he glanced back at the door of
the boardroom, hoping quietly that Rufus would stay calm.

			-- * --

	The door clicked shut behind Reeve, and Rufus turned back to face
his father. He could feel his hands clenching into fists as he regarded the
older man. "What do you want?"

	"Sit down, Rufus." Shinra's voice was calm, with only a hint of
irritation threaded through it. "I have some things to say, and you're going
to listen."

	Rufus took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and sat back down.
"Yes, sir?" 

	Cool blue eyes met cool blue eyes across the table. The two men
looked nothing like father and son; the eyes were the only telltale. "I've
been considering this for some time, and your little outbursts tonight only
confirmed that it would be a good idea. You need to learn some self-control,
and it's plain that you're not learning it here. You also need to learn what
it means to be an executive in this company. The Junon office needs some
executive supervision; I want you to pack your bags. You'll be leaving in
two days to take over as head of operations there." The president smiled,
thinly. "It will, of course, be announced as a promotion."

	Deep breaths, Rufus found, could only carry him so far. "You're
/banishing/ me," he growled. "You don't like what I say, you know that I'm
right, and you're packing me off to Junon because I can't make trouble
there. Just go ahead and say it."

	Shinra banged a fist sharply against the table again. "I am sending
you somewhere where you can learn proper respect for your superiors!" He
settled back into the chair. "You've been allowed to run around this company
doing whatever you wanted to do for far too long. We are a corporation,
Rufus. Not a playground. It's time you started taking responsibility."

	"/Responsibility/?" Rufus clenched his teeth, tightly, and hissed
through them. "You want to talk to me about responsi-fucking-bility? You
have no clue what I do for this company. I've been busting my ass around
here for the three years since I got out of that jail of a school you threw
me into. I work fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, all to clean up
after these other fuckups you've hired. And now you're telling me that I
don't know the meaning of responsibility?" He could feel his temper
beginning to boil. "If you'd ever bothered to open your eyes and take a look
at what I accomplish /every fucking day/, you'd know that I have more of a
grasp on the concept of 'responsibility' than nearly anyone else in this
room."

	Shinra smiled again; it was not a pleasant expression. "Outbursts
like this only serve to confirm my suspicions. I expect results from your
time in Junon, Rufus; if I've satisfied myself that you've learned some
measure of control in six months, I'll reassign you back to Midgar. Go and
pack. You leave Sunday evening, to be there in time for Monday morning. I
expect you to comport yourself in a manner befitting a Shinra and an officer
of this company. You're dismissed."

	Rufus stood; his chair scraped backwards on the floor, roughly.
"Sir." It was an acknowledgement, bitter and angry, bitten off between
gritted teeth. He turned to go, and then turned back. "When did you start
hating me?" he asked, his face set. "I just want to know that. Was it when
Mom died? Was it after that? Was it when you realized that I wasn't going to
be your perfect little puppet? Was it when I was fifteen and I told you that
I didn't want anything to do with this company and you kept me shut up in my
rooms for an entire summer? When was it, mister president?" It was more out
of anger than sorrow, though he knew that there was sorrow there, the kind
of deep hurt that would never be soothed at the most basic level no matter
how much, intellectually, you tried to move past it. 

	The president shook his head. "I don't hate you, son." And perhaps
that tone of almost-kindness, that casual moniker, was worse than the
lecture of a moment ago. "I'm just trying to do what's best for you and for
this company. Go pack. You have a lot to do, and not much time to do it in."

	Rufus studied his father for a moment longer, feeling the bile
rising in his throat, and then nodded, briskly. "Yes, sir." 

	He did not notice, as he turned to go, his father's head snapping
up, tilting to the side, precisely like a dog listening to a whistle that
only it could hear.

			-- * --

	"A'right." Reno tapped a pen against the batch of files under his
hand; his other hand held a rapidly-cooling slice of pizza, which he used to
gesture. "We don't got much to go on, do we."

	"No. We don't." Reeve leaned back against the couch he was sitting
in front of and closed his eyes. "I've told you guys everything that I know.
Rufus might know more, but the gods only know when he'll be back down here."
He'd debated even doing that much without talking to Rufus first, but the
Tarx had information he hadn't, and /they/ didn't seem to be holding back at
all. It startled Reeve, a bit; he was used to the Tarx in their after-hours
personae, not their business mantle. "I just have this sinking feeling that
we're getting bits and pieces of this puzzle, and if we don't put together
in time..."

	"Something even worse is going to happen." Rude's voice was quiet,
but his deep rumble cut through the room. Both men had taken the news of
Sephiroth's reported death quietly, but Reeve could tell that they had both
been affected. "And it's not going to involve just one of us, and it's not
just going to involve some asspimple town halfway across the planet. It's
going to hit all of us, and it's going to hit Midgar." He lifted one large
hand to rub at the back of his neck, as if uncomfortable with what, for him,
was a long speech. "You're not the only one who's thinking like that,
Reeve."

	Tseng turned from the window, where he'd been looking out over the
city; the Tarx lounge, while not as well-placed as Rufus's apartment or the
president's office, was still high enough up the tower to have an excellent
view. "There's no point in going over the facts again," he said, and his
voice was just a bit weary. "Except for this: there's no reason, no matter
/how/ insane the old man is, to be this fanatical about covering things up.
It's insane. He's going to spend millions of gil to reconstruct that little,
as Rude so charmingly put it, 'asspimple town', just to cover up the fact
that one of his employees snapped and burned it? That's sharply out of
character for him." 

	"Maybe th'fucker just finally snapped," Reno mumbled, around a
mouthful of pizza. The skinny Tarx was the only one who was still eating;
he'd devoured nearly a full pizza by himself already. "We already knew he
wasn't dealin' with a full deck."

	"No." Reeve shook his head, watching Tseng pace, his eyes slowly
filling with horror as he put a few things together. "No, Tseng's right. Old
Man Shinra is a lot of other things, but he's also a cheapskate. If he's
throwing this much money at the problem, then there's something else going
on here. I never would have thought of it, but he's /right/."

	Tseng's lips curved, just a little. "That's why they pay me the big
bucks," he intoned, lightly, ironically. Reeve couldn't help the quick grin
that crossed his face; Tseng actually seemed to be going out of his way to
be likable. Reeve wasn't sure what brought about the change, but he
certainly wasn't going to complain. "And I'll bet you a hundred gil," Tseng
continued, "that it's got something to do with that fucker Hojo."

	Reno hmmed thoughtfully. "Always thought there was something not
right in that man's head. What, d'you think he knows where the bodies are
buried, or something?"

	"He /has/ been around this company longer than nearly anyone else,"
Rude pointed out.

	"Yeah," Reno agreed, "but he's been holed up in his lab for mosta
that time. I never see him outside there." He shuddered, theatrically, and
then tossed the pizza crust back into the box; Rude idly reached out, picked
it up, and bit into it. Reeve had to hide a smile; both actions had the air
of something that had happened thousands of times before. "Thankfully." 

	"That doesn't necessarily mean anything," Tseng pointed out, pacing
over to the bar and pouring himself a cup of coffee. "He could have --" He
broke off at the light beeping noises that indicated someone was using the
keypad outside the door; the three Tarx stiffened slightly, each of them
reaching slightly for one of their concealed weapons, before relaxing again.
Reeve made mental note -- once more -- never to try and sneak up on any of
them. 

	The door opened to reveal Rufus, one of the only non-Tarx to have
the access code to the lounge. Reeve bit his lip; Rufus looked angry, yes,
but there was an old pain in his eyes, one that he usually managed to
conceal. "Any pizza left?" he asked, sounding tired.

	Reno finished gulping his coffee and gestured towards the box. "We
left ya two slices. What's shaking?"

	Rufus's mouth twisted wryly. "I'm headed back to jail. On Sunday
night. The old man said that if I behave myself, I might be let back by
Yule." He sighed, crossed the room to the bar, poured himself an oversized
mug of coffee, didn't bother with milk or sugar, and headed back across the
room to drop down across the couch Reeve was leaning against.

	"Jail?" Reeve twisted around to look at Rufus. He knew that Rufus
had a habit of referring to the exclusive boarding school he'd been sent to
as 'jail', but ... "You're not going back to /school/, are you?"

	"No." Tseng's eyes were on Rufus's face, and he was giving Rufus
that kind of intense look that usually made Reeve squirm with a basic sort
of jealousy he couldn't quite place. This time, though, Reeve didn't mind
it; it was the look, almost, of an older brother. A mentor. "He's sending
you out to Junon, isn't he."

	Rufus gestured a salute to Tseng with the coffeemug. "Right in one.
Someone give that man a prize. I, apparently, need to learn self-control and
responsibility. To accomplish this, I am being reassigned as executive site
support in Junon, thus neatly killing two birds with one stone. The old man
gets rid of the prodigal son, and Junon gets some on-site administration.
Which, yeah, okay, they badly need out there. But --"

	"Three birds," Reno said suddenly, and then blinked, leaning forward
in his overstuffed easy chair. "Three birds, chief." The other man's eyes
glittered. "Junon ain't on the network, are they?"

	"No," Rufus said, slowly, the light dawning for him as well. "No.
They're not. They've got their own network, but they're not connected to
Midgar. We never got the old man to approve laying all that cross-mountain
cable, and it's too far from Midgar over too many mountains to get any cell
reception. It's radio link twice a week to synchronize databases and send
email, and that's it." 

	Reeve sat up a little further. "You're not suggesting that he's
sending you out there to keep you from poking your nose in --"

	"Oh, he's perfectly capable of it." Rufus hissed a little, through
his teeth, an idle thinking noise. "He's trying to keep me from fucking
around with something that he thinks I shouldn't be." He exhaled, sharply.
"It's a logical leap, but man, it feels right."

	"The question is what." Reeve frowned. "What have you been working
on lately? What would piss him off so much?"

	Rufus spread his hands. "I've been working on a bunch of things.
Trying to reorganize the whole damn Accounting department. Programming a
better file handling system for the mainframe. Working on a cross-department
salary --" Reeve could practically see the lightbulb going off over Rufus's
head. "Working on breaking Hojo's file encryption."

	"/Hojo/." Reno cursed under his breath; it didn't sound
complimentary. "An' we're back to that sleaze. Y'were right, boss." He
reached in his pocket, dug out a hundred-gil piece, and flipped it at Tseng,
who deftly caught it. "That's gotta be it."

	"Everything seems to be coming back to Hojo, lately," Reeve said,
with that sort of slow progress that indicated he, too, was thinking out
loud. "Do you think we might be a little paranoid about this? I mean, how
could he get the president to do anything? And why?"

	Tseng shook his head. "It's not paranoia if it fits the facts.
Everything that's odd about this company right now -- well, everything
that's /newly/ odd about this company right now -- can be traced back to
Hojo, or involves Hojo in some way. That tells me that there's weird things
going on with Hojo, not with the company."

	"I'll tell you what bothers me," Reeve added. "The Mt. Nibel reactor
bothers me. It's one of the old models, the ones without any of the new
safety provisions. I'd like to get in there and upgrade it, but every time I
put in a request, I hear shit about not being able to afford a flight out
there for the full upgrade team. The Mt. Nibel reactor is the only one I've
never been in, and the reasons why change each time." He ran a hand over one
cheek, rubbing at one of his eyes; they were starting to feel gritty. "I
keep getting told that my position is head of /Urban/ Development."

	Rude nodded, slowly. "You think Hojo's got something to do with
that, too?"

	Reeve shook his head. "I can't see how he would. That's what's
making me wonder if we're just being too paranoid. I mean, it doesn't fit
/all/ the facts..."

	Rufus cursed under his breath and rose from the couch to pace back
and forth; the lines of his shoulders showed his irritation. "And I won't
even be able to /do/ anything about it from out in Junon. God /damn/ it."
His eyes glittered with anger. "This timing /sucks/."

	"What about Sephiroth?" Rude leaned forward, resting his elbows on
his knees. 

	Rufus winced, just a little; Reeve could tell that he had been
trying to avoid thinking about it. "What about him?" The tone was brittle.
"They're perfectly content to write him off as dead and not try and figure
out what happened. I won't be able to look into it, of course, because I'm
going to be in Fucking Junon for the next six months or until Daddy Dearest
decides that I can play nice with the rest of the corporate boys and girls." 

	"Hey, chief." Reno's voice was surprisingly sympathetic, almost
tender. "We got ya covered. They're sendin' us out with the 'reconstruction'
team, right, boss?" He flicked his eyes over to Tseng, who nodded. Reno
echoed the nod, decisively. "Yeah, we got ya covered. Nobody's gonna say
nothin' to me if I disappear for a while an' start pokin' around -- nobody
except th' boss."

	"'Th' boss'," Tseng commented, dryly, "will most likely be demanding
hourly updates. I want to know just as much as you do." Something in that
harsh face softened. "He was my friend, too."

	"Is this --" Reeve stopped, not quite sure of what he was trying to
say, then started again. "Has this sort of thing ever happened before?" He
spread his hands. "I mean, do people /usually/ go missing completely and
then have the president decide to cover it up?"

	Rufus shook his head, but didn't stop in his pacing. "No. Closest
thing, actually, was your predecessor."

	Nearly two years wiser, Reeve knew what that actually meant this
time. "You guys killed him, didn't you," he said, looking over at Rude and
Reno across the coffeetable. "Or had him killed." The thought didn't disturb
him as much as it had, two years ago. He wasn't sure what that said about
himself, and he wasn't sure if he liked it or not, but the thought didn't
bother him as much as it had. 

	Rude smiled, just a little, lips curving underneath the sunglasses
he wore even indoors -- Reeve realized, crazily, that he had never seen the
large man's eyes. "He fell down the stairs," Rude commented, lightly.

	"While drunk, yeah, I know, you guys told me." Reeve rolled his
eyes. "Come on, I've known you guys for two years now, I know what that
means."

	Reno laughed and shook his head, reaching out one long and lanky arm
over Rude, stretching for his cigarettes on the table next to their two easy
chairs. He couldn't quite reach, and Rude -- with an expression that made
Reeve think that he was rolling his eyes behind those sunglasses -- flipped
the pack into Reno's lap. Reno fished one out and used it to gesture in the
place of the long-finished piece of pizza. "Nah, Reeve, he really did fall
down the stairs. Fucker was drunk as Bahamut's butler and decided t'take the
stairs when th' elevator took too long to get there. We got it on the
security cams." He made a face. "We were /thinkin'/ of doin' something to
get rid of him, but turned out we didn't have to. He did it himself."

	"If we're done with this little trip down memory lane," Tseng
interjected, dryly. Reno looked up, and Tseng pitched a lighter across the
room, underhand; Reno caught it and used it to light his cigarette. "Let's
just make sure we all know what the plans are."

	Rufus stalked over to the bar, pouring another cup of coffee. "I get
banished to Junon. I'll dump the contents of my files to disk before  I go,
so I can at least have /some/ hope of working on something while I'm there,
but I'm afraid we're going to have to consider me out of the equation for
the time being." He pointed across the room at Tseng. "You're going to have
to be my eyes and ears while I'm there, Tseng. Keep an eye out for anything
you think fits into the puzzle, however minor. Reeve --" He switched the
focus of his gesture to Reeve. "You'll be the only one of us who's got
access to the board meetings, so I want you to keep listening. Make a note
of anything that seems at /all/ out of place, however minor. Anything that
has to do with Hojo. Anything that has to do with Nibelheim. You're the most
likely out of anyone to be able to get access to the Nibelheim reactor, so
keep your eyes open."

	Reeve nodded; Reno leaned forward, through his cloud of smoke.
"Whattya want us two to do, chief?"

	Rufus smiled, just a little, a dry expression. "Administratively
research things. Find out whatever you can find about Hojo. Find out
whatever you can find about the old man. I don't trust either of them, and
if Hojo has some kind of a hold on him, I want to know about it. I want
/every/ scrap of information you can find on Nibelheim and what happened. I
want to know /precisely/ what caused Sephiroth to -- to snap." :If he did:,
his voice seemed to say. 

	Reno nodded. "We gotcha. Anythin' else?"

	Rufus shook his head, once more scrubbing a hand over his face
wearily as he took another swig of coffee. "Get some sleep. You guys ship
out at the butt-crack of dawn. I want you awake and alert when you touch
down in Nibelheim; I want to know /everything/." He smirked, a bit wryly.
"I'll be gone when you get back. Tseng, you have my public encryption key.
Don't send anything cleartext that you don't want the whole world knowing."

	"I'd already assumed that," Tseng replied. "And he's right," he
continued, switching his focus to Reno and Rude. "Go get some sleep; be
ready at 0530 downstairs. Be ready for anything. I don't know what's going
to happen any more than you do."

	Rufus nodded. "Right." He finished the coffee, set the mug down on
the bar. "And -- take care of yourselves, men. I think we've all got the
feeling that this is bigger than anything else we've ever touched."

	Everyone nodded, and Reeve stood, passing a glance over to Rufus.
"Um --" He blushed a bit, but forged ahead. "Mind if I stay over here
tonight? It's getting late to go back cross-town."

	"/Please/." That one heartfelt syllable was the closest that Reeve
had seen to emotion out of Rufus since the beginning of the meeting. The
other men politely averted their eyes and pretended not to hear -- even
Tseng. "I'll go up with you."

	Reeve nodded a bit awkwardly. "Okay." He looked back over to Rude
and Reno, then cast his glance over to Tseng. "Night, guys. And, uh,
thanks."

			-- * --

	"Are you okay?" It wasn't until they were both in the elevator that
Reeve felt comfortable venturing the question.

	Rufus offered up a little smile before flicking his eyes up to the
security camera in the corner of the elevator; Reeve took his meaning --
people are listening, even when we don't expect them to be -- and nodded,
just a little bit. "I'm fine. Just tired." 

	"Been a long day," Reeve commented, under his breath, as the
elevator slowed and discharged them onto the 60th floor, right next to the
glass-enclosed walkway that led to the residential building. "Been a long
/week/."

	"Been a long lifetime," Rufus commented, ruefully, as he headed down
the corridor with his ground-devouring stride. As if his words called
something else to mind -- Reeve winced as the same thought occurred to him,
~it wasn't a very long lifetime for Sephiroth,~ but he tried to force it
down -- Rufus's lips twisted again, and fell silent.

	By now, Reeve could match Rufus's all-out pace, though it was a bit
more than just simple "walking" for him -- not quite a jog, not quite a
trot, but enough of it would leave him headed towards winded. Too much
driving a desk, he thought ruefully. Rufus usually shortened his stride when
walking next to someone, but Reeve didn't really begrudge Rufus's
forgetting. It had been, as he had said, a long day. Rufus would realize
sooner or later and slow down --

	That was when it really hit him. 'Sooner or later' would probably be
later -- much later. Rufus would be in Junon by this time Monday evening,
and Reeve wasn't sure when he'd see his recurrent lover again. It hadn't
quite felt real up until that moment, and his heart sunk as he realized.
~He'll find someone else out there,~ his brain chattered at him; ~he'll find
someone else and he'll come back in six months and tell you that it's all
over and laugh when you tell him that you waited for him that long and tell
you that he can fit you in a week from Thursday if you're lucky but
otherwise you'll have to just wait until he's done with all the other people
who want a piece of him and --~ He shut off that part of his mind, with a
conscious effort, grateful for the reprieve from keeping up that the second
elevator offered. ~Give it time,~ he told himself. ~Let's wait and see.
There's no reason to worry until you see what he's going to say...~

	What Rufus said, when they were finally inside his apartment
(stopping to chat casually with the security guard outside the door first,
giving the impression of a night out on the town cut unexpectedly short by a
desire to get some sleep -- Reeve still couldn't quite believe how well
Rufus could pretend, when he wanted to) was, simply, "Oh, gods." Freed from
the pressure of needing to put on a face for the rest of the world, he
simply dropped his laptop bag next to the door; before Reeve really knew
what was going on, Rufus had latched strong arms around Reeve, holding
tightly, breathing deeply. Not crying; Reeve had never known Rufus to cry.
His shoulders were tense, though, and his grip like iron. "Oh, gods, Reeve,
/gods/..."

	Reeve cast desperately around for something to say, /anything/, and
failed. "I know," he said, softly, feeling like the world's most
inarticulate idiot; he rested his hands on Rufus's back, offering what
little comfort he could. "It's okay. I know. I know. Gods, I know." What a
mistake, to think that just because Rufus was holding together, that he
wasn't affected. He should have known by now that "holding together" was
far, far different than "being okay." "Come on. It's okay. Let's -- I dunno,
let's get into something more comfortable and we can talk about it --" He
just said the first thing that came into his head, trusting his instinct.

	Rufus drew back after a long moment. His eyes, as Reeve had
suspected, were dry; but they were anguished. "He's -- I can't believe that
he's dead, I just can't --"

	Reeve dragged a hand over his own face, kicking off his shoes in the
vague direction of their usual haunt underneath the coffeetable. "I can't
really believe it either. You talked to him last Thursday. God, it's just
over a week. What could have happened in a week?"

	"I don't /know/!" The heartfelt cry nearly broke Reeve's heart. "I
can't imagine any sort of circumstances that would make him just -- just
snap like they're saying he did -- gods, even when he was pissed, Seph
wouldn't hurt a fucking /fly/ if the fly wasn't trying to hurt him first."
Rufus turned, blindly, half-stumbling across the lush living room towards
the kitchenette. Halfway there, he seemed to change his mind, and headed for
the bar instead, pulling out a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. "Leveling
a town? Killing hundreds of people? That is /not/ the Sephiroth I know!"

	"You knew him pretty well, didn't you." Reeve crossed the room to
stand behind the couch, resting his hands on the back of the furniture, not
quite certain where Rufus intended to settle and not willing to make the
decision for him by sitting down. "I mean, I didn't see you two together
very often, but I could tell --"

	"I had two friends in this entire fucking place when I was growing
up," Rufus said, bitterly. "Him and Tseng. And the only reason that I was
even allowed to spend time around them was because they were my teachers, in
something. The old man didn't like it when I got too close to the hired
help." Glass clinked against glass as Rufus poured, picking up his own glass
and draining it quickly before refilling it. "And I didn't even meet Seph
until I was fifteen. SOLDIER second class, assigned to guard duty for the
precious fucking Heir to the Throne. I don't know which one of us resented
it more: me for getting a member of SOLDIER assigned to guard me, or him for
being the guard assigned to that little fucking brat that I was. I'd scared
off the rest of the regular army, you see." He shook his head, bitterly. "It
took us hours before we could even be civil to each other."

	"Looks like you got over that pretty quickly," Reeve offered,
softly, sensing that Rufus wanted to talk about it.

	"Hah. We were stuck on a fifteen-hour car ride to Junon, and he
didn't say one word to me until we were halfway over the mountains except
for 'slow down'." Rufus's shoulders moved in a silent laugh. "He never /did/
get used to my driving..." He shook his head, sharply. "We're -- we /were/ a
lot alike. Raised by the company. Nobody to talk to. Nobody /smart/ enough
to talk to. Nobody worth the oxygen it took to converse with them. Nobody to
give a good god damn about either of us. Gods, of course we would be
friends. I tried to drag him out of that goddamn shell he put himself in,
and he rolled his eyes and let me. Gods." He knocked back his second glass
of whiskey and put his hands on the bar, leaning his weight on them, letting
his head drop and his hair fall back into his eyes. "He's not dead, Reeve. I
can't believe that he's dead."

	Reeve bit his lip. "You think they lied to us?" That was a
possibility, of course -- anything was a possibility, around here -- but his
first impulse was to say that it was the grief talking: grief and disbelief,
not rational thought at all.

	"I don't fucking /know/! And I'm not going to fucking know -- gods,
I wouldn't be satisfied until I see his -- the body myself." Rufus picked up
his head, tossing his hair back out of his face. "And I can't, because I'm
going to be stuck in fucking /Junon/ until god knows when, and meanwhile one
of my best damn friends is supposed to be dead, and nobody will tell me how
it happened because they don't fucking /know!/" 

	He poured another glass of whiskey; Reeve debated asking him to slow
down with his drinking, then internally shook his head. Better to deal with
the hangover in the morning than the overwhelming, unblunted edge of grief
now. "Tseng will find something --" he offered, feeling helpless and
impotent against that grief. "Or Reno. Or Rude. They'll find /something/ --"

	"I should have fucking been there!" The cry was short and anguished,
loud enough to have been heard from the hallway were it not for the
soundproofing of the walls. "I should have fucking been there, I was the one
who wanted him to look into things for me when he was out there -- fucking
/gods/, what if it was something he found when he was looking at things for
me that sent him over the edge? What if I was the one who killed him?" 

	Reeve didn't know what he could offer to that; Rufus laughed again,
a short sound that was half a sob, took a deep breath, and sought oblivion
in the bottom of his glass once more. Not finding it there, he picked up the
bottle of whiskey and drank directly from it; a second later, he let out a
little inarticulate snarl and turned, pitching the bottle into the cold
fireplace with a force that made Reeve wince and shrink backwards,
scattering shards of glass and splashes of alcohol across the thick carpet.
Into the silence that followed, Rufus said, his voice eerily calm, "Thus
conscience doth make cowards of us all."

	"It -- it wasn't your fault," Reeve stammered, forcibly pushing the
fear back away. "You -- you didn't do anything to cause it. Rufus, you
weren't even there -- you don't know what happened -- it could have been
anything! You don't /know/!" 

	Rufus buried his face in both of his hands, rubbing his palms over
his face as if he could wipe away the emotions. "No," he said, his voice
still holding that unearthly calm. "I don't." A long, long moment, and then
he looked up again, piercing blue eyes fixed directly on Reeve's face. "Stay
with me tonight."

	It wasn't a question; Reeve knew that much. But it didn't irritate
him as much as it normally would, that sort of command; for once, he knew
that Rufus needed him. "Of course," he said, quietly, seeing the strain
behind Rufus's eyes. "As long as you need me to."

	Without a backwards glance for the wreckage on the carpet, Rufus
nodded and turned for the bedroom. Reeve took a deep breath, and then
followed.

			-- * --

	The lights of Midgar provided more than enough illumination for
Reeve to watch Rufus as he slept. The curve of golden hip, the fall of
golden hair: all of these were long-familiar to Reeve, learned night after
night, written into long-term memory with a clarity he didn't think would
ever fade. He'd long since ceased to wonder how the other man managed to
maintain that tan beneath the smog-covered skies of Midgar. He loved
watching Rufus sleep; it was the only time that the taut lines of the other
man's face and body smoothed out into gentle relaxation.

	If Rufus were asleep, Reeve thought, quietly, he wouldn't disturb
him. Not after the night he'd had. Not when it might be the last time they
had this time together. The fears he'd pushed aside before came rushing back
to him now; he rolled over, careful not to brush up against Rufus as he
moved, to lie on his stomach and gaze out over the expanse of the city.
Rufus had said all the right words tonight. But that didn't mean that it
couldn't change in -- however long it would take for him to come back.

	If he came back. If he came back to Reeve.

	Reeve breathed a long and heavy sigh, staring out at Midgar
unhappily.

	"'M not asleep," came the soft, sleepy voice from behind him, as
Rufus rolled over, stifling a yawn, to rest one gentle hand at the base of
Reeve's spine, fingers lightly stroking there. "What're you thinking?"

	"About you going to Junon," Reeve admitted, not looking over at
Rufus. He was almost ashamed to admit it. "About what it's going to mean for
us."

	His only response was a sleepy chuckle as Rufus closed his eyes
again. "It'll be okay," he mumbled, already sliding over the edge towards
restful oblivion. "'M not gonna abandon you."

	That was all Reeve had to content himself with, but he drew it
around himself like a cloak, tightly, and closed his eyes. 

	Midgar stared unstintingly back up at them both.

			-- * --

	Sometimes, the world really does hinge on a little bit of good
timing.

	Not perfect timing -- a fact for which the man would berate himself
in later years. Never quite /perfect/ timing. But close enough, and close
enough to save the one precious thing he'd come there for. He'd bandaged her
wounds the best he could, scavenging one bit of gauze from his traveling
pack, and known his work to be futile; she was badly injured, more badly
injured than his rough knowledge of field medicine could cover. Her breath
was rough and raspy, each shallow gasp holding no small amount of wet gurgle
that frightened him, badly.

	He needed to get her to the doctor. That much was clear. But where?

	Rockton was out of the question; the place was crawling with Shinra
soldiers, and he was still a wanted man. He entertained the notion of Costa
del Sol, briefly, before discarding it -- resort towns had doctors, yes, but
none that would have ever seen such injuries before, nor know what to do
with them. Corel, perhaps -- but no, he'd had to detour around there on his
way; Shinra was claiming that town as well. Cosmo Canyon would have had both
the medical knowledge to help and the hatred of Shinra to keep from turning
him in -- but he didn't think that he could get a limp and injured body over
the mountains, particularly not without some kind of vehicle that could
handle the approach. 

	And then, the solution came to him, with a clarity that made him
laugh even as he lifted one hand, stained with her blood, to rub against the
itch on the bridge of his nose. He knew someone who would help him, and help
him with no questions asked; he knew someone who owed him a favor, a large
enough favor that using it for this wouldn't be presuming on a friendship
from years past and forged in less-than-ideal conditions. 

	Most importantly, he knew someone who was a /doctor/.

	Zangan couldn't quite bring himself to whistle as he carefully
gathered the limp body into his arms and set out back down the mountain path
at a brisk pace, but he was suddenly a great deal more cheerful about the
world. Knowing where you're going can do that for a man.

	Sometimes, the world really does hinge on a bit of good timing. And
sometimes, it hinges on one man having the audacity to waltz in right
underneath the enemy's nose, no matter how hard it is to get from Nibelheim
to Midgar undetected.

	"Sorry," were the first words he heard when he finally reached his
destination, the other man not even looking up, "it's after business hours.
Come back tomorrow morning. Or go the Shinra free clinic up on the other
side of 2; that's surely more what you're looking for anyway."

	He smiled grimly, shifted his by-now-familiar burden in his arms,
and responded, calmly, "I'm afraid I'm not looking for anything to do with
Shinra." 

	Ellis started violently, and Zangan stepped into the clinic, hoping
that it wasn't already too late.

	But it wasn't. In fact, it was just in time.

	Good timing, indeed.





[Grateful appreciation and worship to Ashlea for allowing us to borrow
Ellis, an original character of hers, and the Ellis/Zangan friendship, along
with the details of how Tifa wound up in Midgar; the last lines of dialogue
in this chapter are lifted with full permission from her story "Seventh
Heaven", which can be found at her web site, Moon Pants:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~arlierma . The stories diverge sharply from this
point onward, but we appreciate her lending Ellis to the universe next
door.]