The Conscience of the King
		Chapter 12 - Runaway Train


"Every day, you crawl into the night
A fallen angel with your wings set alight
When you hit the ground, everything turns to blue
I can't get through the smoke that's surrounding you
'Cause when you're falling
I can't tell which way is down
And when you're screaming
Somehow I don't hear a sound
And when you're sinking
Then your feet don't touch the ground
'Cause when you're falling
I can't tell which way is down..."
	-- Afro Celt Sound System




	"Someone wanna remind me just why I wanted to be back here so
badly?" Rufus scowled at the pile of papers on the floor in front of
him. "The place is a shithole. The weather sucks. I haven't had a good
night's sleep in the past six weeks. My pager keeps going off. Chunks of
the air are sticking to my clothes. And to top it all off, I'm
/hungry/."
	
	"Pizza place downstairs delivers," Rude pointed out, not looking
up from the game system. He deftly maneuvered the colored block into
place and dropped it; the game obliged by bleeping and flashing, taking
the four completed lines away. 
	
	Rufus scowled again. "Yeah, and I've been living on takeout for
the past six weeks, too, which doesn't help. Dammit, where did Tseng
leave those reports?"
	
	"He's gonna kill you if he sees you with his papers like that,"
Rude added.
	
	"I know, I know." Rufus blew the lock of hair back off his
forehead and scowled as it fell right back into his eyes, as always. "He
said he had the incident report from the last rebellion downstairs on
his desk. I sure as hell can't find it."
	
	Rude paused the game. "You didn't say that was what you were
looking for." He tossed the controller onto the coffee table, stood up,
and wandered over to the pile of papers on the windowsill. The folder he
chose looked as if it were about to explode; he handed it over. 
	
	If looks could kill, Rude would be nothing more than a pile of
clothes and metal. "What did you /think/ I was looking for, Rude?"
	
	Rude shrugged. "Coulda been anything." He sat back down and
picked up the game controller. "Better clean that up before the boss and
Reno get back."
	
	Rufus took a deep breath, ran his hand through his hair again,
and muttered something under his breath. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Wouldn't
be the first time he tried to kill me." He surveyed the wreckage around
him; the Tarx-office-cum-lounge was always a mess, but it had gotten
worse and worse since Reno had scared off the last of the cleaning
people. 
	
	It looked like a combination between an explosion in a paper
factory and the stockroom of a munitions plant; the walls were scarred
with the remnants of old target practice sessions, and this week's
dartboard was a picture of Heidegger. Someone had scored a bull's-eye,
directly in his nose, and the dart had been left there for posterity.
Pinned to the punching bag in the corner, with a dagger, was the tie
that Tseng had given Reno for Yule (with the instructions, of course, to
start wearing it; Rufus was somewhat impressed that /this/ year, the tie
made it to May before being used as interior decoration). A few guns
were lying around, in various states of disassembly, casually strewn
across tables and counter. 
	
	On the whole, Rufus was glad that only seven people or so had
the code to get into the room. It was just safer for everyone that way.
	
	The sound of someone inputting said security code made him look
up; the door got out of the way quickly, but not quickly enough for the
people on the other side of it. Reno was looking pale and leaning
against Tseng's shoulder; a quick glance showed why, as he was leaving a
thin trail of blood behind him and had one hand up to put pressure on
his shoulder.
	
	"Fuck," Rude mumbled, and put the game on pause again. "What
happened?"
	
	Reno grinned at him, weakly. "Ducked too fuckin' slow," he said,
and Rufus could tell from his dilated pupils that Tseng had already
given him /something/ to kill the pain. "Got it right in th'shoulder
from some hippie rebel." 
	
	Rude groaned, already on his way to the first-aid kit as Rufus
made his way over to the bar to get Reno a glass of water. "Not again."
	
	Tseng maneuvered Reno over onto the couch (which was, thankfully
covered in leather and therefore would not show bloodstains), beginning
to remove Reno's shirt. "It's heating up down there," Tseng said,
grimly. "And I don't mean the weather. We were almost out of there
before someone recognized Reno from that sting five years back."
	
	Rufus frowned as he handed the glass of water over to Reno, who
took it with his good arm. This close, Rufus could see that Reno was
indeed flying on something, and it sure wasn't adrenalin. "I thought you
guys were just going down there to peek in on that kid that Hojo wants
you to keep an eye on. What happened, did ExSec catch you on the way
down and ask you to stop in somewhere?"
	
	"No." Tseng took the first-aid kit from Rude and broke it open,
choosing a surgical needle and thread for stitches, a pair of tweezers,
a bottle of disinfectant, and a high-level Cure materia before going to
wash his hands and don a pair of rubber gloves. The Tarx first-aid kits
tended to be more well-stocked than a standard one; /all/ of them
preferred tending their own wounds rather than risking Hojo's lab or the
zoo that was Midgar General. "Reno, this is going to hurt like a bitch."
	
	"'Sokay, boss." Reno grinned and let his head drop back against
the couch. "Dunno what you dosed me with, but I'm feelin' fine."
	
	"I 'dosed' you," Tseng grumbled, "with something that will have
you seeing the pretty colors in about another ten minutes or so, and I'd
like to get this stitched up before then. Don't move." He picked up the
tweezers to probe for the bullet.
	
	"/If/ you don't mind," Rufus said, feeling his patience
beginning to fray, "telling me what happened?"
	
	Tseng didn't spare a glance for him, concentrating instead on
the wound in Reno's shoulder. "We took the Lower Five shortcut to get
back to the train station, and ran into the middle of a peace rally.
Leviathan only knows what happened, but apparently some of the hippies
have decided that peaceful protest isn't getting them anywhere, so
they're starting to stockpile guns. We got into a slight argument about
whether or not they were entitled to bear arms. Reno lost. Here." 
	
	Rufus automatically held out a hand, only to have the bullet
fragment dropped into it. He scowled, held it out a little further to
avoid getting blood on his linen pants, realized that it was too late --
he'd knelt in a puddle of blood when he'd sat on the couch to check
Reno's vital signs -- sighed, and went over to the sink to try and wash
it out. "/Fuck/. They have guns? That's /bad/. How the hell did they get
their hands on guns down there?"
	
	"No shit." Tseng examined the bullet wound. "You're lucky this
missed the artery, Reno. As far as I could tell, they were army surplus,
and believe me, I will be going down to the quartermaster the moment I
finish up here and knocking a few heads politely together until I can
find out how they /got/ down there. In the meantime, Reno, please try
not to scream. We always get complaints from the neighbors." He set to
work stitching up Reno's shoulder; Reno bit his lip, but didn't cry out.
	
	"I'll take care of it," Rufus sighed, scrubbing at his pants
with a cloth. "It's better if it comes from me; they don't like you guys
down in the army barracks. And if they are getting stuff from us, we're
going to need to bring IntSec in on it." He sighed again. "Fuck, I
/hate/ those bastards."
	
	Eleven stitches in the shoulder, and Reno was more or less in
one piece again; Tseng put down the needle, swabbed the wound with
disinfectant again, and picked up the Cure materia. "You're already busy
with the situation down in Lower Three, aren't you?" Sewing up the wound
first gave the Cure materia better chances of working without depleting
Reno's body's own resources; Tseng held the orb in one hand and
concentrated, holding the other hand over the mostly-repaired bullet
hole. A moment to recover, and he added, "You're spread too thin as it
is, Rufus. I can handle it."
	
	"You're spread just as thinly." Rufus gave up on the pants and
dropped the rag into the garbage. "When did it get to be so bad down
there?"
	
	Tseng shrugged. "While you were in Junon, mostly. I sent you the
reports."
	
	"I know. It's not like being here and seeing it for myself." He
looked back over at Reno. "How're you feeling, Reno?"
	
	Reno opened his eyes and tried to focus on Rufus, mostly
failing. "Like I been shot in th'shoulder an' then doped to the gills,
stitched up, an' hit with Cure materia, ya fucker, what d'you think I
should feel like?" He blinked a few times. "What was /in/ that stuff,
boss?"
	
	"Old Wutaian secret," Tseng informed him, stripping off the
bloody gloves and handing them to Rude. "Don't mind the little blue men;
they aren't really there, and they'll go away in an hour or so."
	
	"Does the old man realize how bad it is down there?" Rufus
leaned back against the bar as Rude dropped the gloves in the garbage
and got a rag to clean up the trails of blood on the floor. "I mean, I
know you hand him the reports every Friday like a good little drone, but
does he /know/? Does he realize?"
	
	"I can't make him realize any more without taking him down there
and rubbing his nose in the fact," Tseng snapped, his eyes narrowing as
he pinned their gaze on Rufus, "and if we do /that/, he isn't coming
back up."
	
	Rufus rubbed one of his temples to try and ward off the
headache. "Yeah, well, that might not be a bad idea," he muttered, then
stopped himself before he said more. "What are you guys doing to take
care of it?"
	
	Apparently, that question was the last straw; Tseng stood fully
and almost snarled. "What do you /want/ me to do, Rufus? We have
External Security for a reason. It's /their/ job to handle it. We just
go where we need to go and shoot who we need to shoot."
	
	Impatiently, Rufus waved a hand. "Fuck that, Tseng, you've never
just done what you were told the entire time you've been working here,
why am I supposed to believe that you'd start now? We all know that
ExSec is a bunch of wankers with their heads up their asses and
Heidegger is a nutcase who can't see the forest for the trees, and I
thought we'd pretty much agreed that we'd be keeping an eye on them
/ourselves/." His eyes narrowed. "If you'd like, I can go and take care
of it myself by doing something drastic like hauling the whole
Ramuh-be-damned lot of them off to join the fucking army and serve their
tour of duty in scenic Glacial Village, but that's /hardly/ going to
make us any more popular than we already are down there, now is it?" He
sighed and lifted a hand to his forehead again. "Look, I'm sorry I
snapped at you, but I'm just at the end of my fucking rope here and I'd
appreciate a little bit of backup."
	
	"We. Are doing. What. We. Can." Tseng's voice was cold. "In case
you haven't noticed, one of my men just got /shot/ down in your
under-city, Rufus. I'm not all that thrilled about that fact, and I'm
certainly not planning on just dismissing it, but will you please just
/back the fuck off and get out of my hair on this issue/ before I have
to shoot /you/, too?"
	
	Rufus threw up his hands. "Fine. Look. I'll be upstairs in my
office , I'll just take /this/ --" he snagged the file folder he'd come
for -- "with me, and you can give me a call if and when you find out
anything useful. And in the meantime, take a fucking Valium or
something, because if you don't get your boxers out of that knot they've
gotten into, /someone/ is going to pack you back off to Wutai in a box."
He turned to go, half-ran into Rude, scowled, detoured, and let himself
out of the room.
	
	Rude watched him go. "...Boss?"
	
	Tseng whipped around to pin angry eyes on Rude. "/What/?"
	
	"You /both/ need a vacation."
	
	Tseng scowled. "Fuck you, too, Rude."

	
			-- * --

	
	"Hey, Beatrice!" Reeve sailed into Rufus's ante-office
cheerfully, leaned over the desk, and gave Beatrice a firm kiss on the
cheek. "It's a wonderful day, isn't it?"
	
	She eyed him dubiously. "It's fifty-five degrees outside, the
smog is thick enough to chew, and it's raining."
	
	Undaunted, Reeve grinned. "Yeah, I know. Ain't it great? Is
Rufus in?"
	
	"In a bad mood, is what he's in. He's more likely to bite your
hand off as say hello to you, so you might just want to go back down to
your office and send him email with whatever he needs to know." Beatrice
went back to sorting mail with equanimity. 
	
	Reeve shook his head. "I'll take the chance, actually. It's good
news; it might cheer him up." He blew Beatrice another kiss and let
himself in. "Hey, Rufus, I've got good -- woah." He stopped in his
tracks and blinked a few times; Rufus was sitting behind his desk,
cigarette in one hand, flipping through a pile of papers so quickly and
so angrily that it was a wonder none of them tore. "None of that blood
on your pants is yours, is it?"
	
	"No." Rufus didn't look up. "Reno got shot again."
	
	Reeve groaned and closed the office door behind him. "/Again/?
Will someone just issue that man a Kevlar vest already?"
	
	"We did. He refuses to wear it. Says it's too heavy." One hand
slammed down another receipt on one stack of paper.
	
	"Who shot him?" Reeve took a quick look around the office,
assessed the temper fit in progress, came up with an answer that didn't
involve enough whiskey to be dangerous, and headed over to stand behind
Rufus and rub his shoulders. Rufus stilled, then tried to force himself
to relax. 
	
	"Protest group down in Lower Five." Rufus closed his eyes and
took deep breaths. "They got a hold of some guns somewhere; Tseng said
that they looked like military surplus. One of 'em made Reno from an
undercover sting that went down before you got here." 
	
	Reeve frowned. "Guns? They have guns?" He dug his thumbs into
Rufus's shoulderblades. "That's ... /really/ bad, Rufus."
	
	"No shit." Rufus's tone was flat. "Tseng and I have already had
this argument, okay, so I don't really need to go over it again."
	
	Okay, so that was a sore spot, and not the shoulder, either.
"Yeah, sorry." He worked along one of the muscles of the shoulderblade.
"I'd offer to help you sort it out, except we've just had seven billion
things dropped on Urban Dev and I'm going to be running around like a
chicken without a head for a while."
	
	Rufus opened one eye and tilted his head back to look at Reeve.
"You finally got the mayor in Corel to agree to let you build a
reactor?"
	
	Reeve grinned. "Sure did." The smile faded after a second. "And
I'm damn well going to be going /out of my way/ to make sure that all of
the equipment is up to code when we build it. If they'd let me out there
to check up on the Gongaga reactor with any regularity, the town might
still be standing."
	
	Rufus lifted a hand to rest against Reeve's hand on his
shoulder. "Don't kick yourself," he said, quietly. "It's not your
fault."
	
	The smile that Reeve forced in return was brittle. "Yes, well,
it's either blame myself or blame the president, and blaming myself is
better for my continued employment." He left off the backrub and leaned
against the edge of Rufus's desk. "Anyway, yeah. I just got back from
the last set of negotiations with the mayor, and I've finally managed to
convince them. Construction starts next week. Once we get that built,
we'll be able to get the Gold Saucer to switch over to our power and
kill the coal energy that they're using, and the whole region will be
cleaner because of it." 
	
	"And line the company coffers a little more," Rufus said, dryly.
	
	Reeve's eyes narrowed. "That's not why I did it, and you know
it. Have you ever seen anyone dying of black lung disease, Rufus?"
	
	Rufus sat back in his chair, sighing. "No." 
	
	"You suffocate. Your lungs just get clogged with coal dust until
they can't get any more air in them, and you suffocate surrounded by
fresh air because you can't /breathe/ any of it." Reeve tried to
suppress his irritation. "They lose about a hundred people a year out
there in North Corel, and it's /preventable/. They don't need to use
coal anymore, they don't need to mine coal anymore, and /no one else
needs to die/." He tugged on his ponytail. "It's not about the bottom
line, it's not about the profit line, it's not about anything but the
fact that there are actual /people/ out there who are /dying/ and we can
stop them from risking their lives and their health for a system of
power that we /don't need/ anymore. That's what it's about, and if you
can't see that, then maybe I should take you out there and let you see
what a black lung patient looks like first-hand."
	
	Wearily, Rufus held up his hands. "All right, all right, I
believe you. It's been a bad day."
	
	Reeve looked away and bit his lip. "Yeah, I'm sorry I yelled.
It's just ... they remind me a lot of the people I grew up with, out
there. They're stubborn, they're full of pride, they're poor as hell,
and they won't take charity from anyone. I understand where they're
coming from. It's why the president sent me out there to negotiate when
Scarlet failed."
	
	Rufus suppressed the shudder at the mention of Scarlet. "Well,
I'm glad that they did, if you managed to get them to agree." He rubbed
a hand over his face. "And you're right, I probably do need to think
more about the people, but dammit, right now the only people I have time
to deal with are the ones who are trying to lead some sort of glorious
revolution against the corporate oppressors, or something."
	
	Reeve winced. "That bad?"
	
	"Well, you can ask Reno. Once he stops seeing the pretty colors,
of course; they had to dope him up pretty good." Rufus picked up another
piece of paper, glanced at it, put it down again, sighed. "And now I'm
going to have to send someone from ExSec down there, and they're going
to make a mess of it, and we're going to have to clean up after them,
and it's going to be one huge ugly mess for the next three weeks at the
very least, and you know, I love this city, but there are a lot of times
when I just damn well don't /like/ it very much."
	
	"I know the feeling." Reeve held out a hand, rested it on
Rufus's shoulder as an apology. "Hey, I'll bet you haven't eaten yet,
have you?"
	
	"No." Rufus rocked his head back and forth, and was treated to a
veritable symphony of bones cracking. "I was going to get something to
eat delivered up to the lounge, and then Reno came in with a gunshot
wound and I pretty much lost my appetite."
	
	Reeve nodded. "Let's run downstairs and pick up something at
Choco Bob's or the Wutaian place. We can get it packaged to go, you can
come back up here, we'll work for a while, and then we can go out
tonight and grab a movie or something?"
	
	Rufus sighed. "Yeah ... I guess." He sighed, rubbing a hand over
his face. "I've got a bitch of a headache and I'd like nothing more than
to just go lie down for a while, but there's no way I'll be able to do
/that/ until all of this is done. I think I'll just give up sleeping as
my Beltane present to the company, or something."
	
	"I don't think /that/ would solve anything," Reeve said, archly.
"Come on. You need to just get out of this office or something."
	
	Rufus looked down at his desk, looked down at himself, and then
looked back up. "...Mind if I go over to my apartment and put on a clean
pair of pants first?"

	
			-- * --

	
	Today, the punching bag looked like his father. It changed, of
course; Rufus superimposed the faces of anyone who'd been bothering him
lately, and took his frustrations out on an inanimate object rather than
a living being.
	
	It wasn't as if the living beings generally didn't deserve it,
but threatening to pull someone's intestines out and turn them into a
necklace tended to distress Reeve.
	
	Tseng had taught him how to fight, years ago. Sephiroth had
completed the lessons -- and the sudden stab of guilt for thinking about
his friend for the first time in over a year washed over him, but he put
it away; there was no time for grief, in a place like this. He
remembered being fifteen, cocky and all too sure of himself, standing in
the gym and waiting for Tseng to show up, positive that once the "old
man" arrived, he'd be able to wipe the floor with him. He remembered the
bruises that lesson had left him with, and the resolution that one day
he'd be able to do that too.
	
	Swivel, pivot, and back-kick; he channeled a little more of his
rage and frustration into each blow against the sack of sand. /This/
punch he imagined crushing his father's windpipe; /this/ kick, his
kneecap. The bag shuddered and jerked with each impact, and he imagined
the sound of his father begging for mercy with each blow. /This/
palm-slam was for sending him to Junon; /that/ elbow-check was for not
fucking /listening/ to him when he came back, taking everything he said
and tossing it out the fucking /window/, totally ignoring every single
problem he brought up and always obliquely hinting that the contingency
site in Junon was floundering without his so-called expert fucking
guidance, always with the undertone of "you could be back there tomorrow
morning so you'd better start behaving if you don't want to catch a
plane" and that oh-so-fucking-smug /smirk/...
	
	He was breathing raggedly, but it wasn't from the workout; it
was from the emotions that he giving free reign. 
	
	Rufus had learned the hard way, years ago, that it was simply
easier if he worked through his anger. He had a temper, and he knew it,
and it was safer for him and for the people around him if he just took
it down to the gym every morning before work (and some days, after work
as well) and poured it into the punching bag. 
	
	"Fuck you," he growled, with each hit. "/Fuck/ your company,
/fuck/ your profit, /fuck/ your control, /fuck/ your orders, /fuck/ your
fucking smirk, /fuck/ your for-my-own-good, /fuck/ your fucking
contingency site, /fuck/ your fucking slums, /fuck/ your patriarchial
father-knows-best attitude, /fuck/ your blindness, /fuck/ your refusing
to see what's going on right under your nose..." 
	
	His growl got deeper and more impassioned with each blow, and it
was a good thing that the Shinra corporate gym bought their equipment to
last, or the punching bag would be showing signs of definite strain. The
skin over his knuckles was cracking and he left thin smears of blood
against the white cloth with each blow, but he didn't care, didn't
/want/ to care, just needed to get it /out/, needed to channel it
somewhere and let it loose and just let go of it, put it away in the
same place that he'd put every single little slip and slight and
forgotten moment and indifferent look that his father had ever given
him, the same place that he put all of it so that he could face the man
every day without wanting to tear his fucking /throat/ out, the same
place that he locked /tightly/ away and only ever let out when he was
here in the gym with something safe to hit in front of him and he could
wear himself into the ground until he could sleep without the dreams
coming to take him over ...
	
	"Sir." The word was soft, but it sent him whirling around, lip
curled back in a snarl, fists at the ready. Beatrice was standing in the
doorway, looking unruffled as always, though his primitive hindbrain
noted that she was positioned in such a way as to get through the door
and down the hallway quickly if it should prove necessary.
	
	"/What/?" The word was bitten out, a bare syllable, short and
abrupt and laced with venom. Beatrice took a step back, but her voice
was steady as she replied.
	
	"There's an emergency. They need you upstairs."
	
	"/What fucking emergency/?" Rufus took deep breaths, trying to
fight down the adrenalin, trying to pull himself out of the space in his
head that he'd let himself slip into. "What could possibly be so urgent
that they sent you down here to drag me away from the /one hour a day/ I
fucking take for myself?"
	
	She looked as if she might bolt and run at any second, but Rufus
knew that whomever had sent her down here had probably done so because
she was the one person in the world who had a chance of interrupting him
during a workout and not having her throat torn out for it. "Corel is on
fire. Sir. There aren't many survivors."
	
	That stopped him, when not much else could have. "/What/?" 
	
	Her chin came up. "Dio just called from the Gold Saucer. He says
that Corel's on fire. He sent someone down there to see what was going
on, and they said that the place was swarming with people in Shinra
uniforms. Shooting at the civilians. And someone believes that they saw
Scarlet, though reports are unconfirmed. Is that enough of an emergency,
sir?"
	
	He could feel the growl building, deep in his chest, and rather
than let it out in front of someone else, he turned and drove the palm
of his hand sharply into the punching bag. The bag danced on the end of
its chain. "/Fuck/, goddamn /fuck/, stupid /cunt/, what the /fuck/ is
she doing... I'll be upstairs in five minutes, get everyone in the
office, don't let anyone do anything without me, /where the hell is my
goddamn shirt/..."
	
	Beatrice beat a hasty retreat while Rufus looked for his shirt;
he wiped the sweat off his face and shoulders with the towel he'd left
there for that express purpose, and tried to calm down. Being yanked out
of the middle of one of his sessions in the gym wasn't quite like being
yanked out of the middle of a workout, more like .. well, more like
being interrupted while you were beating the shit out of your father,
even in effigy. The rage hadn't really cooled by the time he was dressed
again, albeit dressed in sweatpants and ragged old t-shirt. He closed
his eyes in the elevator and tried to swallow the rest of it, tried to
haul it all back in and tamp it down into the little box where it
belonged during his usual waking moments. He'd mostly succeeded by the
time that he arrived back on the executive floor, though the guards near
the elevator took one look at him and took three steps backwards. 
	
	He hit the door to his office at stride and nearly blew it off
the hinges; the inner door didn't fare much better. Tseng looked up
quickly at the sound of his arrival, but didn't move from where he was
hovering over Reeve, who was sitting on the couch, pale-faced and
trembling, holding a glass of some amber liquid in his hands and closer
to tears than Rufus had seen him since Gongaga. That sight stopped him
short, and he grasped for the reins of his temper even more firmly; if
he was needed, he was needed, and he'd have to just damn well take time
for the explosion later.
	
	"What the hell happened?" His voice came out sharper than he'd
intended, and he bit back the curse that tumbled towards his lips and
stalked over to the bar to pour himself a glass of water. 
	
	"We don't know." Tseng's voice was bone-tired, colorless. "I got
the reports fifteen minutes ago and sent Beatrice down to get you as
soon as they hit my desk. The reactor's gone, half the town is gone with
it, the place is crawling with Shinra soldiers, and as far as we can
tell Scarlet is tits-deep in the whole mess."
	
	"Where is she?" Rufus could feel his teeth gritting together as
he snarled the words. 
	
	"No one knows." Tseng nudged Reeve to take a sip from the drink,
gently. "No one's seen her for the past few days."
	
	"Her secretary." Rufus slammed the glass of water down on the
bar and whirled around to face Tseng. "When was the last time her
secretary saw her?"
	
	Tseng shook his head. "Beatrice is trying to get some
information out of the poor girl right now. Let Beatrice handle it,
Rufus, she can do it without terrifying her. And for Leviathan's sake,
/calm down/."
	
	"This. Is. Calm." Each syllable rasped out from between clenched
teeth, and Rufus took another deep breath, stalking out over to his
window and resting both of his hands palm-flat on the glass. His body
heat leeched into the glass, slowly forming a halo of condensation
around his fingers. "She fucking had something to do with this. I don't
know how, and I don't know why, but she did. I /know/ she did. She's
been too fucking /quiet/ lately, and we all know that means she's
fucking up to something, and I didn't /do/ anything about it."
	
	Tseng only sounded tired. "What could you have done, Rufus?" He
rubbed a hand over his face. "None of us are gods. Not even you."
	
	"Your hands are bleeding." The voice was so soft that Rufus
almost missed it, and he turned around to see Reeve looking up at him,
his eyes distant. "Your knuckles. They're bleeding."
	
	Rufus looked down at his hands against the glass; sure enough,
capillaries and skin had broken with the force he'd been using against
the punching bag. He hadn't really noticed. His knuckles were usually
bleeding by the time he was done with his workouts, and a little bit of
Cure materia made the blood go away. If it meant that the new skin
wouldn't be as strong as it would be if he left it alone to heal by
itself -- well, Cure materia was cheap enough, and easily enough
obtained. "They'll heal," he said, shortly, but pushed himself away from
the window to wash the blood from his skin. He could feel himself
settling into the ice, gathering it around himself like a shield. "I've
done it before."
	
	Reeve laughed, shakily, his voice brittle. "That doesn't mean
that you should do it now." He lifted a hand and pushed his hair out of
his face. "All those people ... I was just /there/, I was just talking
with them three damn weeks ago..."
	
	"I know." Rufus scrubbed at a line of blood that had trickled
down the back of his hand and dried there, distantly; his hands felt
like they belonged to someone else. "I know. We'll find out what
happened. We'll find out what happened even if I have to beat it out of
her."
	
	"No." Reeve's voice was sharp, edging towards hysterical. "Don't
hurt her. I don't care if she did do it on purpose, don't hurt her. I
don't want you to hurt anyone -- I don't want anyone to get hurt --"
	
	"Reno is downstairs in the comm room," Tseng said, his eyes hard
on Rufus's face. "He'll find out as soon as there's word. I told him to
get his ass up here the minute he knew anything. I don't trust the
intercom system around here. Rude's down in Lower Eight this week but I
can have him back up here in two hours if you want me to pull him off
the op."
	
	The blood wouldn't come off his hand. "No. Let him stay; there
isn't anything we can do. Does the old man know?"
	
	Tseng nodded, and a hint of steel crept into his voice. "He's
got the PR team on things already. I think the story that Scarlet's
feeding him is that the reactor went up because someone out there
doesn't like Shinra."
	
	Reeve grabbed onto Tseng's wrist. "They wouldn't /do/ that," he
said, urgently. "I /know/ those people. They wouldn't do that. They
might not like Shinra, and they might not trust Shinra, but there isn't
a one of them out there who's dumb enough to do something like that even
/if/ they thought that Shinra wouldn't level them like a ton of wet
bricks if they tried." He grimaced at having to admit that Shinra
probably /would/ level them like a ton of wet bricks if they tried. "I
/know them/. They wouldn't do it."
	
	Rufus's eyes locked with Tseng's. "No one is saying that they
would, Reeve," he said, and the anger and the ice were all melting
together, leaving a bone-deep weariness behind them. "I'd bet you my
next year's stock options that they had nothing to do with it. But we
won't know until we know more about what went on." He closed his eyes
and sighed, and took a few more deep breaths. "The old man isn't sending
anyone out there, is he."
	
	"ExSec." Tseng didn't sound very happy about the prospect. "He's
claiming that since it was the work of anti-Shinra activists, it's a job
for ExSec and not for us."
	
	"/Fuck/, that's supposed to be what you guys are /for/.
Department of Administrative Research my ass, why does he even bother
pretending..." Rufus scraped at the dried blood on the back of his hand
with the fingernails of the other hand. That woke up the pain receptors,
finally, and his skin screamed to life. It hurt. He didn't mind. 
	
	"First Nibelheim," Reeve said, as if to himself. "Then Gongaga.
Now Corel. Gods above and below, is this company just cursed?"
	
	"Yes," Tseng said shortly. "The old man is mad. His god is
money, and he worships at its feet every waking moment. And as long as
someone is making him money, he doesn't care what else happens."
	
	"You don't make money by /blowing up your customers/!" Reeve's
voice was one step closer to hysteria now, and he knocked back another
swallow of the drink that he'd given every impression of having
forgotten about. 
	
	"We'll do something about it, Reeve." Rufus switched hands, the
water flowing over his knuckles. He'd broken the capillaries; the
blood-bruises would take a long time to fade. "I don't know what, and I
don't know how, but I'll do something about it." His hand closed into a
fist under the faucet. "I have to. You just don't /do/ that shit."
	
	"Don't hurt her." Reeve turned around on the couch, twisting
urgently to look at Rufus. "Whatever you do, don't hurt her. She's not
worth it." 
	
	Rufus started to open his mouth, and he wasn't sure what his
response would be -- ~I can't promise anything, I can't tell you
anything, I can't give you any reassurance, it's all so close to the
surface that I don't know if I can keep from letting it out, and she's
looking like a damn fine target right now, and I know you hate it when I
pull this kind of shit but, dammit, Reeve I'm only human, as much as it
might hurt to admit that sometimes~ -- but was saved again by Tseng.
"Finish your drink, Reeve," he said, gently -- for him, at least. "Let
Rufus take care of things. He's been dealing with her for years."
	
	Reeve subsided, unhappily, and sipped at the whiskey again. "I
-- " he started, and was interrupted by Reno bursting into the room,
slightly out of breath.
	
	"Boss," he started, and then shifted his gaze to take in Rufus.
His eyes widened a bit, but he charged on with what he'd come in to say.
"Chief. Just got word from Air Traffic Control. Scar's on a helicopter
back to Midgar. Landing in fifteen. Executive helipad." 
	
	Tseng and Rufus exchanged glances, in perfect agreement. Reeve
started to get up from the couch; Tseng kept him there with a hand on
the shoulder. "Stay here," Tseng said, and his tone was starting to drop
back into professional mode. "We'll deal with it. Reno, stay here and
--" ~keep Reeve out of our hair~ was the underlying meaning, but his
actual words were "make sure that Reeve is okay. We'll check in when we
know more."
	
	Reeve bit his lip unhappily. Reno nodded. "You got it, boss." He
looked over at Rufus. "Hey, chief, your hands are bleedin'."
	
	Rufus ignored him as he and Tseng left the office at a trot.

	
			-- * --

	
	The helicopter touched down and Scarlet stepped out of it, her
head held high, an expression of satisfaction on her face. That
expression froze when she saw Rufus and Tseng waiting for her; she
bobbled for half a second, nearly missed her landing as she stepped from
the mouth of the helicopter, and recovered just in time to keep from a
rather undignified fall.
	
	She hid it well, but she couldn't hide it from Rufus. They'd
known each other for too long. He knew, and that was what damned her.
	
	Tseng was standing one step behind him and slightly to the
right, waiting. Rufus didn't move, just stood there as she drew up in
front of him faintly quivering with anticipation and hidden guilt. 
	
	"Rufus," she said, and her voice was razor wire wrapped in
velvet. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"
	
	"You have two choices, Scarlet." The rage was starting to burn
inside of him again, and he fought it down. "You can come with us, or I
can drag you by the hair."
	
	She tossed her head, her chin coming up in an old gesture. "I'm
very tired, Rufus. I've just been through an attempted rebellion, and if
you don't mind, I need a shower, a meal, and about ten hours of sleep
before we play these little games. If you'll excuse me." 
	
	She took a step as if to go past Rufus; he had her by the elbow
before she could complete the gesture, wrenching her back against him.
Her hair spilled loose, falling down over her shoulders as she jerked.
"Oh, I don't think so," he said. His voice was soft and silken, with a
tone that anyone who knew him would recognize as dangerous. "I think you
need to come talk to me for a little while. Because if you don't, I am
going to put my hands around that pretty neck of yours and choke you
until you stop breathing, and then maybe I'll choke you some more, just
for good measure." He smiled, slowly. "That was a threat. You might not
have noticed. I've gotten out of the habit of making them lately."
	
	Scarlet's eyes flickered over to Tseng, as if looking for
support; he stood there impassively, and she found none of what she was
looking for. She yanked her elbow back from Rufus's fingers and turned
to face him, her eyes spitting fire. "And just what do you think I've
done /this/ time to provoke your temper, /big brother/?" She laughed.
"You're bluffing. You wouldn't dare do anything to me. Daddy wouldn't
like it."
	
	"He's not your father." It was a slow burn, but it was old, and
it was powerful. It rose from somewhere he'd thought he'd locked away a
long time ago, twining around his chest, and it felt good to let it
loose. "You might have him wrapped around your finger, but he's not your
father, and if it all came down to it, he'd back me before he backed you
and you damn well know it."
	
	"Would he?" Her lips rounded in a little smile. "I don't think
so, actually. He's been very unhappy with you lately, Rufus. You might
be the one he's actually related to, but I'm the one who does what he
needs me to do. You just stand there and find reasons why what he wants
is a bad idea." She cocked her head to one side and looked at him, her
temporary unbalance draining away. "Which one of us do you /really/
think he would back, if it all came down to it, hmm? The one who fights
him, or the one who loves him?"
	
	The only thing that kept his temper from breaking was Tseng's
hand, subtle but reassuring, wrapping around his wrist. "What happened
out there, Scarlet?" Tseng asked, his voice slow and inexorable like the
rock standing against the ocean. "What /really/ happened?"
	
	She laughed again. "What happened? There was a scene with guns
and grenades, and many people were hurt. The soldiers came in and
stopped the fighting, and I came home to tell Daddy dearest that Corel
won't be giving us any more trouble, ever again." Her eyes were merry.
"He'll probably give me a promotion because of it."
	
	"You're mad," Rufus said, softly. "You are absolutely,
completely mad."
	
	That struck her; she drew herself upright, good humor vanished
as if it never had been. "/Am/ I?" she spat. "Which one of us is mad,
Rufus, which one of us? You've turned into a pathetic sniveling excuse
of a man, charging up against whatever it is that you see as 'wrong'.
Like you see yourself as some kind of knight, sent in to sweep the world
of all its wrongs." Her eyes narrowed, and she turned the glare to
Tseng. "And you, you're nothing better than his lapdog, trotting along
behind him and waiting to see if he drops a bone. Is that what you
wanted, Rufus? A company full of people who would roll over and show
their throats for you, do anything that you told them to? Isn't that
what you've been trying to build?"
	
	She didn't stop to get an answer to any of her questions; she
didn't /want/ an answer to any of her questions. Her voice steadily
rose. "I have news for you, /big brother/. The only place that exists is
in your head. The rest of us live in the real world, and in the real
world, what Daddy says /goes/. And if Daddy says that Corel is a bad
place for a reactor after all, and if Daddy says that he wants a reason
to take those rebellion groups in the slums and crush them once and for
all, then what Daddy gets is /no more reactor in Corel/ and a bunch of
terrorists to blame it on, all wrapped up nicely and neatly and dropped
in his lap for the morning news reports. And what I get is his approval
and a huge bonus in my next paycheck, and what you get is /nothing/.
Nothing, Rufus. Not even your little boy-toy."
	
	The edges of Rufus's vision were beginning to go white with
rage; Tseng's grip on his wrist was as tight as a manacle. "He has
nothing to do with this, Scarlet."
	
	"/Doesn't/ he?" Scarlet's hands clenched into fists at her side,
and her voice rose another half-octave. "You are so fucking blind that
you can't even see to shit. /He took my place/. That was /my/ spot in
your bed, that was /my/ spot standing next to you. He took that and /you
didn't even notice/!"
	
	"/He didn't take anything/!" The wind caught Rufus's roar,
whipped it across the roof, and whisked it out over the city. Two
breaths for him to fight down his temper, and then each syllable
precisely gritted out through clenched teeth. "He didn't take anything.
You never had anything for him to take. He doesn't have anything that
you don't except a brain and a consicence and the ability to fucking
think for himself. Is that what you want, Scarlet? Because running off
to blow up Corel so that you can take his toy away from him is
/certainly/ a bad way to make that known."
	
	She laughed shrilly. "Is /that/ what you think made me do it?
Get over yourself, Rufus. You've got your head stuffed up your ass and
your fingers in your ears, and the world is changing around you, and if
you don't stop to look at what's going on, you're going to find yourself
pushing a desk in Junon for the rest of your life until one day you're
outside and someone shoots at you and you duck too slowly and then this
company will be mine. /Mine/, Rufus. And your precious city comes with
it." 
	
	He'd broken Tseng's grasp on his wrist before he knew what he
was doing. Her hair was thick beneath his fingers, cutting into the open
wounds against his knuckles as he used it to yank her around and against
him; she made a little noise like a frightened rabbit as her back came
up against his chest. The smooth column of her throat was soft and
yielding as his thumb and forefinger circled her windpipe. 
	
	She held very still, breathing shallowly, her pulse fluttering
against his hand. "We're being recorded, Rufus."
	
	Rufus lowered his head, resting his cheek against her hair, and
whispered softly into her ear, "I don't care, Scarlet."
	
	She shivered at the touch of his breath against her skin; one
elbow twitched, as though she was considering driving it into his solar
plexus. "You should. If anything happens to me, they'll pull these
tapes."
	
	The wind caught a lock of her hair and drove it into his face.
"I can have the tapes wiped with a single word."
	
	"You wouldn't dare." She didn't sound at all sure of herself.
"You wouldn't dare."
	
	"If you ever --" and the voice that came from his lips was iron
and poison -- "do anything like this ever again, there won't be enough
of you left to bury." His fingers closed just a little more, and her
intake of breath was a sharp squeak. "I dream sometimes of snapping your
neck with my bare hands. I could do it right now, and then I wouldn't
have to worry about you ever again."
	
	"Rufus." The word didn't quite reach through the tide that was
threatening to consume him, and Tseng had to repeat it. "Rufus." Pause.
"Let her go." Scarlet's blood pulsed beneath Rufus's fingertips, and
Tseng repeated himself, this time with steel beneath it. "Let her go.
Reeve asked you not to hurt her." Beat. Beat. Beat. "Let her go, Rufus."
	
	Rufus shuddered, once, and lifted his head; Tseng stepped into
his field of vision. "Let her go, Rufus," he repeated, and Rufus
loosened his grip on her throat, slowly. Tseng nodded. Rufus let his
fingers fall, and then abruptly shoved her away from him, one rough push
between the shoulderblades from the hand that had been holding her hair.
	
	Scarlet fell to her hands and knees and coughed, sharply, then
pushed herself back up to kneel on the roof. One hand rose to her
throat, as if to verify it was undamaged. "You think I'm mad?" she
rasped, her voice ugly. "You think that /I'm/ mad? You are /rabid/. You
need to be /put down/." 
	
	As she turned on her heel to go, Rufus growled and lunged at
her. Tseng had him by the arms before she could even realize what was
going on, twisting Rufus's arms up behind him and holding on tightly as
he struggled. Scarlet's eyes widened again, and she stopped, facing them
fully but backing up one cautious step at a time. "If I were you," Tseng
panted grimly, "I would get out of here before I decided that I didn't
want to hold him down after all."
	
	Her eyes widened a little more. She'd obviously been counting on
at least a little support from Tseng. "I--"
	
	"/Go./" Tseng snarled the word. She took the hint. The clack of
her heels running across the roof faded quickly.
	
	Tseng waited until she was gone to shake Rufus sharply. "Get a
hold of yourself."
	
	Rufus had stopped struggling, submitting to Tseng's hold with a
grudging dignity. "I'm fine. Let me go."
	
	It took a moment before Tseng believed that Rufus had calmed
down, but once he was satisfied, he let Rufus go and stepped away. "You
don't look fine."
	
	"I am going to take her up to Hojo's lab and /vivisect/ her."
Rufus shook himself once, then stalked over to the edge of the wall and
looked out over the city. "I am going to tack her skin up on the wall as
a /trophy/."
	
	"That won't solve anything." It was a tired statement, and Tseng
scrubbed a hand over his face before coming to stand next to Rufus and
fish his cloves out of his pocket. "There's a time and a place to fight
someone, and this isn't the time or the place."
	
	Rufus yanked the cigarette case out of Tseng's hand with a
vicious motion and flipped it open, taking one out. "Maybe not, but it
would sure as /fuck/ feel good."
	
	"I won't let you do that to yourself." Tseng took the cigarette
case back, choosing one for himself. "Go down to your rooms, take a
shower, and get some sleep. We'll look at this in the morning and see
what we can save." Rufus's eyes sparked; Tseng let some of his own
control drop and his impatience show through. "/Go/. You're not thinking
clearly, you don't have /any/ control over yourself, and I'd really
rather not have to pitch you over the edge of this building right now.
You're not the only one who can have security tapes wiped, Rufus. Go."
	
	For half a second, Rufus looked like he was going to argue, but
he stopped, deflating in mid-motion. "You're right." He looked down at
the cigarette, scowled, lit it, and took a drag.
	
	"Of course I'm right." Tseng made a little gesture, while
lighting his own. "Go take a shower. You'll feel better."
	
	The two men looked at each other for a long moment, and then
Rufus nodded again. "I'll see you in the morning."
	
	"Good night, Rufus." 
	
	"Yeah, sure. G'night."
	
	Tseng stood on the roof for a long moment after the door slammed
behind Rufus, thinking. The cigarette burned down long before he finally
moved again.

	
			-- * --

	
	...and Reeve dreamed...
	
	/A weed rose between two blocks of concrete, straining towards
the noonday sun. He was standing on a beam barely wide enough for his
feet, high above the ruins. Where the plate had been. The last of the
supports had broken away, and all that was left above the rubble and the
dirt was a grotesque skeleton of city bones./
	
	/The sun flashed into his eyes and he threw up a hand to shield
himself from the glare. It unbalanced him, and he grabbed a cross-beam
for a handhold before he fell. A handful of gravel and dust fell from a
support above him, showering him in grit./
	
	/Nothing else moved. Nothing made a sound./
	
	/The city was not dying. The city was dead, and from its ashes,
life was beginning to cautiously claw out a foothold./
	
	/He turned, slowly, warily, looking for a way to get down. A
full circle revealed nothing. As he glanced back to the way he'd been
facing, a soft voice nearly made him lose his footing again./
	
	/"Don't fall."/
	
	/He whirled around to see Rufus standing on the beam next to
him. The other man was leaning against the crossbeam, hands in the
pockets of his ripped, faded jeans. He wasn't wearing a shirt./
	
	/Something about it seemed familiar./
	
	/"I --" he started, only to see Rufus shake his head./
	
	/"It's started." Rufus's tone was calm, uninflected. His eyes
were opaque against the sunlight, and he didn't squint. "Thus has
Midgar, the great city, been sent hurtling down, never to be seen again.
Watch where you're standing. You don't want to fall."/
	
	/He looked down. That was his mistake. His head swum with the
height between him and the ground. He clutched at his support, knuckles
going white./
	
	/"It's a long way down."/
	
	/Moss grew over a slab of concrete, covering what might have
been a smear of blood, or a stain of dirt. Rubble piled upon rubble,
giving no signs that there had once been a city there./
	
	/"You need to be careful."/
	
	/The sun stabbed through his eyelids as he jerked his head back
up. Don't look down. He had to stop looking down./
	
	/"Wake up, and put some strength into what you still have,
because otherwise it must die."/
	
	/He turned his head sharply look at Rufus, feeling his heart
beginning to race. He didn't know why he was starting to panic.
Something was _wrong_, something was terribly wrong, but Rufus would
save him. Rufus always saved him./
	
	/"Watch your step. It's a long way down."/
	
	/Rufus was watching him, and there was no hint of a smile on
that golden and glorious face./
	
	/He wound his fingers more tightly around the edge of the
cross-beam. His knees threatened to give. He wanted to sit, but that
would bring him closer to the ground, and he didn't think that he could
move./
	
	/Rufus rested one hand on his arm, and he hissed at the touch,
fire and ice all wrapped into one. It wound its way inside his skin,
tugging at him, comfort and anathema all at once. A golden nimbus of
feathers curled around Rufus's shoulders./
	
	/He was whimpering. The sound rose from his throat without his
command, and he stumbled against Rufus's chest, burying his face against
that warm skin. Rufus circled strong arms around his trembling body,
resting a cheek against his hair. His foot slipped on the gravel that
was strewn over the beam, leaving him off-balance and clinging to Rufus
tightly, but Rufus had him. It would be all right./
	
	/Rufus's voice was nothing more than a gentle, kind whisper.
"Don't fall, Reeve."/
	
	/And Rufus opened his arms and let go./