Well, it's been a long hiatus/sabbatical/thing, and here's the next installment. It's a little short compared to my average chapter lengths, but it's mostly introspective. A lot of material, little dialogue and filler. And a little history and backstory to tidy up emptier spots. It's just nice to know I have a direction to take this now, I was a little lost with where it was going when I left off, I got ahead of the plot and then it just stopped writing itself and left me at an impasse. But it's good to be back and thank you so much for the continuing interest and reviews this has received!

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Cloud sat on the edge of the bed, gazing sullenly out the window slats at the darting lights in the street. Please, trust us, he had asked, begged even. He hoped Elena hadn't heard the things he said, or that she knew he didn't think that way about himself. She had seemed to look right through him when he returned. Maybe disgusted with him, maybe lost in her own private hell. I suppose you can pursue her with safety, after all, you worry about people dying around you and it might be a kindness to put a bullet to that troubled blonde head….the nasty voice in his head remarked. At one time he might've called it Sephiroth, torturing him. Now he knew better, knew that it was only himself, but to him it always seemed to be in Hojo's thin, cold nasal tones, niggling at the chinks in his sanity. It didn't bother him as much anymore. But he didn't like that thought about Elena.

He wished she would come up to him, as he put his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands, but he knew she was on watch and he needed to go to her. She probably needed him more, anyway. He knew about her attraction to Tseng, the utter devotion she had held to the man. He knew, or suspected he knew, what it had done to her mind to see him tortured. Tseng's devotion was first and foremost to his job and to Rufus, and there didn't seem to be enough space between the two for a half-mad young blonde woman who was his subordinate. But his kind indifference didn't change the damage those long days had done to her. Cloud didn't sleep much the nights he was with her. He listened to the things she said in her sleep, things he knew she would never tell him voluntarily. It provoked guilt in him to listen, but he consoled himself that he wanted to help her. And maybe, just a little, it made him feel that here at last was someone more dysfunctional than him, whom he could take care of to distract himself from his own comparatively insignificant traumas. The lights went off in the living room downstairs and he could hear Reno wearily climbing the stairs and stumbling into the shower.

It irked the blond that there was that bond between Reno and Elena, the Turk "club," that most exclusive association of elite murderers and spies. He hated the look in her desperate eyes that seemed to say there was no way to tell him what they'd seen, and he couldn't make it better with all his strength and will and even love, if it came to that. It was something he was still coming to terms with. He wished she would leave Shinra, but of course there was no possibility of that. Not even the kinder, gentler Shinra was so lenient. And Rufus was being remarkably low-key in his in resuming his company's gradual stranglehold on Midgar.

Tifa hiccupped in her sleep and turned over in the bed next to his, rousing him from his thoughts. He decided to get up at last. He grabbed a blanket and headed down to see Elena.

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It was always disturbing to Elena to be outside her apartment after dark. She was often out of it for days on assignments, especially lately, but she could never quite shake the nervous chill that came over her at dusk without the curtains drawn and the doors locked in her own bedroom. She shivered as she watched the restless sparks outside, training on each individually but taking in the groups as a whole as they crossed her line of sight. She let her mind enter a fluid state, ascertaining patterns of movement and communication as people came, went and changed shifts. She watched for a change, a slight increase in tempo that signaled a need to use her weapon on the moving targets.

She wondered idly when she would sleep next. She wouldn't sleep here. Not even if he asked her to. Maybe tomorrow night this siege would be over and she could go back to routine. Maybe Cloud would be there. Cloud. She liked the name, it suited him. Blurred and uncertain around the edges, always obscuring his intentions and emotions in his face, and helping to fog some of her more unpleasant thoughts with his easy distraction. He hadn't asked about her dreams, or seemed unduly put off by her disturbing nights. He also hadn't been hurt when she locked herself in the bathroom instead of remaining in the comfort of his arms. She couldn't tell him. There were some things so terrible….Confession didn't make sense to her; it wasn't right to inflict such things, such thoughts and knowledge on someone you cared for. Better to burn it inside you. So she did as she had for so many nights before. She locked herself in the bathroom and sat shivering in a corner with her gun pressed hard to the side of her head and waited.

Sometimes she would stay like that all night, trance-like, and then come to, realizing that her arm was numb and aching from holding it up and her temple was so bruised she nearly screamed if it was touched. It was soothing. Some day the time would come when there were enough things inside her head to tilt the balance and pull the trigger. Every time it didn't happen, she awoke the next day both sad and relieved. The first time had been after her sixth month as a Turk, only a little while after Reno had stopped calling her a rookie. She found her mind coiling tighter and tighter after every assignment. At a loss for an outlet for the things she had to do and see during the day, she couldn't sleep most nights. She remembered that day, but not the job they had done. She had worked with Reno, and they had done something unforgivable. Elena was dully glad she could not remember. They spent the night afterward in an empty warehouse in Junon on the way back to Midgar, and Elena had had blood on her hands. She tried to clean it off without water futilely, exhausted. She had seen a single drop of blood on Reno's white lapel and said something vicious to which he retaliated. Soon they were both screaming hysterically at one another and he had his gun pointed at her head. He had asked her if she wanted to die that badly. Calmly, she asked him to stop playing with her and pull the trigger. They had made love afterwards, without affection, savagely, and they had never spoken of it since. That was only one of many things that were never mentioned again in Shinra's vast history of sins.

She heard Cloud's soft but deliberately audible steps behind her and allowed herself a rare smile. The man who never asked questions and the girl who never spoke. Fitting.

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Hard as it was to get out of the warm stream, Reno felt it was worth it to see Tifa asleep, limbs flung outward in a child-like posture of assured safety, oddly enough for the situation she had been in when awake. Her face held a charming innocence and a soft grace he had only seen once before. Rude should have her, he thought miserably. He would suit her. He was never meant to be a Turk and she was never meant to be unhappy. They should be off on some farm somewhere raising fat, happy kids. (Who do you like, Rude?) No one had ever asked Reno. He had just laughed when Rude said her name so shyly, like a humiliated teenager. Rude had felt that he had no right to be in her life, that no one from Shinra had a right to her when they had taken so much from her.

There were some harsh words exchanged the first time he had seen her with Reno, some months ago. Or, there would have been if Rude had been the type to use words. Reno had been at the Heaven during the day, unusually for him, since the bar was closed then. Rude had tracked him down to deliver his job assignment, and seen him sitting cockily at the bar, drinking coffee and looking at her. The way Rude had looked at her from behind his glasses where he knew no one could see. She had been laughing, taking back the bottle of cream liqueur Reno was so fond of stealing for his coffee, and Reno had reached out a hand and grabbed hers to stop her, and suddenly she was looking at him, too. The red-head had known that Rude saw him, had seen him turn and leave stiff-shouldered. It was the first time Rude had seen his partner look guilty and regretful. Rude hadn't been able to say much, only a few halting words.

"I don't……..I don't have anything to say…..to you….if you…." He had been unable to articulate further, but his large hands rose and fell in fists and Reno had understood and nodded slowly. He hadn't said he was sorry, he knew it wasn't enough. He had only promised to take care of her.

"I see it, Rude. I understand," he had said about her, and that seemed to be what Rude was waiting to hear, even if it didn't quite satisfy.

Rude had a girl, now. A kind, quiet girl from one of Shinra's lower floors who didn't know what he did for a living and never asked. She was good to him, and Reno was happy for him. Tifa sighed softly in her sleep and smiled a little, and Reno felt again that unfamiliar twinge of guilt. He squashed it and reached down to pull the blankets up over her.

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Rufus stood at the dark window of the 60th floor rooms in the new Shinra building. Below, an occasional home or street vendor dotted the streets with light, a few street lamps lit with more primitive technology than mako glowed dimly, courtesy of Shinra, Inc. The sight of it made his stomach clench in revulsion at the impotence of his empire. The newly finished rooms smelled of fresh paint and new carpet. It assaulted his nostrils, smelling of weakness and tenuously established control. New things were vulnerable and attracted contempt or opposition. Better were established regimes, ensconced in layer upon layer of well-known power and popular fear. Worst, perhaps, were those things that crumbled and yet refused to die at their appointed time, clinging to life and rebuilding painfully like a feeble old man fleeing death.

"It isn't the phoenix you wanted it to be," came a quiet voice from behind him. Rufus remained in quiet reflection a moment longer before answering.

"A phoenix must die before it can be reborn, Tseng. I never wanted the downfall in the first place, so that analogy is not quite accurate." He paused. "Besides that, you are correct. It won't be a glorious ascension by any means. I knew that from the beginning. Shinra is in public disgrace," he said as if the last words left a foul taste in his mouth. Tseng dutifully changed the subject.

"What of the Jenova stocks? What strains we have left are not worth seeking out."

"How much remains?" Rufus asked tiredly.

"Only a few specimens, diluted and mixed. Nothing potent or in its original form. Little enough to interest him or even to allow him to cling to life. I'm sorry that we have no answers yet." Rufus pressed his fingers to his eyes in a rarely seen moment of fatigue. "Without the Jenova, we have no clear link from Sephiroth to the Lifestream, or to the Remnants, if they can even be called that, now."

"Reno tells me at least one of them may be leaving Midgar soon. I wonder if Cloud thinks he can protect them."

"Getting them out may be the only way to protect them now. There was….an incident in Midgar Square today. One of the Remnants was assaulted there. Reno and Elena are holed up in the Heaven with them. They were responsible for the rescue of the boy. Elena said they thought it best to save him, in order to most efficiently comply with their current directives."

"It was careless of them to let the boy out. It may have been better for us if he had died there. I had hoped to keep Shinra from being overtly involved with this, at least for the time being." Rufus frowned. "We have suffered enough damage at that madman's hands and now he is complicating things further."

"Perhaps we should withdraw, and allow things to take their natural course."

Rufus shook his head.

"If he had died there, we could have claimed ignorance, but now there is no way to retreat without alienating one or more of them, and until we are sure there is no lasting loyalty to Cloud, it isn't safe for us to take away what little protection we offer. It is only natural of people to want to look after their 'savior.' We can't withdraw our own support until it becomes obvious that he doesn't have any left."

"And Reno?" Tseng asked quietly.

"He will do what has to be done. As always."

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I think it needed a little more fleshing out, things have been happening so fast the characters are only being advanced by things happening to them and not so much by introspection. Which is all well and good, but I despise a shallow character. Speaking of which, I just reread my first three chapters (I'm up to 84 pages of text in word) and they make me shudder. I really need to redo them. Thanks again for reading. i'll be around