Fearless

Disclaimer: I have nothing to do with the property of this franchise and, somewhat unfortunately, am not profiting from this work.

A/N: Fearless has returned, my good people. We will officially be off hiatus! To keep it brief, welcome to the newcomers, and apologies to the old ones. OTL Guess what though y'all, I have officially graduated from college and have a job lined up! That's right, I am now an employed weeb with a degree. And I was up until like four the other night rereading basically this entire story. (Bad authoress!) Resulting in reminding myself of what my smaller plot points even are (bad authoress), not to mention the following recap. So please, proceed.

Recap: Diana has released The Secret and it turns out that the Director is actually a pretty cool dude who isn't down with Shinra's sketchy business practices. Since Hojo (a.k.a. #1 sketchy business practice still apparently at large) is out there and likely monitoring Shinra's every move and security camera, Diana has convinced the Director to guarantee the safety of her and her definitely not dead brother in exchange for them locating Hojo by retracing the steps of Devon's escape. Zack still seemed to be pissed at Diana for keeping her secret from him and not letting him help her with it, but he defended her in front of the Director. Cloud and Tifa also revealed themselves as complicit in Diana's secrecy after having run around the city all day trying to figure out what the hell was going on, in a desperate attempt to distract the Director from what they feared might be a death sentence for Diana, but Lazard pretty much feigned selective hearing and dismissed them all from his office rather calmly. Regardless, this did not make Diana happy, but they'll all be operating under the guise that everything is normal and Diana is still Devon. Meanwhile, Diana has told Cloud and Tifa about the real Devon, who is in awful shape but under Aerith's care, and they are about to meet him.

In other news, Cloud is hashtag done with everything.

Chapter 72: Recovery

"Wow," Devon remarked from where he was standing—leaning on his sister, but still standing. "Wish I had friends like yours!"

"I wouldn't speak too soon if I were you," muttered Cloud. He and Tifa were standing by the foot of the hospital bed from which their friend's twin had recently been liberated. Introductions had been made nearly twenty minutes ago, and Tifa was still watching the young man with fascination as he and Diana made their way back and forth across the narrow room for some slow and steady walking rehabilitation. The stand with the IV drip rolled along behind them like an obedient dog.

"Hey, I don't think I know a single person who would willingly barge into Lazard Deusericus' office and stick their neck out to defend my honor—well, except you." Devon tried to knock Diana off balance with his hip, but she didn't budge and only rolled her eyes skyward.

"Yeah, well, let's not jinx that, please."

"Ouch! Can we get rid of this?" her twin suddenly yelped, glaring at the IV still lodged firmly in the crook of his left elbow.

"I said no five minutes ago, Mr. Loveless, and that's still my answer now!" came Aerith's voice from around the corner at a sanitation station.

He sighed dramatically. "But it's affecting my delicate constitution."

Diana groaned. "Here we go…"

"I am a fragile flower. A fragile, malnourished flower, who just wishes to see the sun—er, maybe just something other than fluorescent lights for starters—so that I may spread my dehydrated leaves and photosynthesize—"

"Nope, that's it, I'm cutting you off, no more extended metaphors for you today." Diana picked up her brother around the waist, albeit carefully, and made for the hospital cot.

"Nooooo," Devon whined. "Just watch, I'll take off and make a run for it when you all least expect it. I was always faster than you, I bet I could find a wheelchair if it came down to it, and I could escape in a blazing flare of glory on wheels—you remember that time we raced wheelchairs down the halls in that inn back home, and we accidentally took that turn for the stairs—?"

"Dev, the last time I tried to escape a hospital ward on Aerith's watch, I ended up hopping around on one foot playing keepaway from everybody else, unexpectedly hanging from the rafters, finally making it to the door on one crutch and having it open on me to get a face full of the Silver General. It's just not fated to end well," Diana advised, patting her brother's better arm. "Also decided along the way that I was related to a developmentally challenged grasshopper, but that's beside the—"

"When the hell were you in the hospital?" he blustered in a voice that defied his wasted frame.

"The time I got shot and—" she began to bluster back. "Ah, crap."

Devon tried to squirm around to face her. "You got shot?!"

"Three times," Aerith put in, still out of sight.

"How many times do I have to remind you people that the third missed?" Diana demanded.

Devon squirmed harder and she finally put him back on his feet, next to his cot. "You got shot twice?!"

"By Wutaian black market mako bullets."

"Aerith, you traitor!"

"What the hell is a MAKO BULLET and WHY is there a BLACK MARKET for them?!"

"I wasn't the only one, Cloud got hit too!"

"Cloud was—you were THERE?!"

"For the record, I was semiconscious for the majority of the excitement—"

"EXCITEMENT?!"

"Sit down before you break out of your sutures, you big ninny!" Diana poked her brother back down onto the cot, albeit gently, as he sputtered. "Alright. One: we were on a mission. Two: we were on a mission with two Firsts. Danger minimal. Until, surprise—danger! Three: we were on a mission while still cadets. No mako yet. Four: I did it trying to protect Zack."

He narrowed his green eyes at her, brightened by the mako drip. "You were—oh. Ohhh. He's a First and missions and…oh."

Diana chewed on the inside of her cheek and stared at the intersection between four of the white linoleum tiles. "Something went wrong during the mission. In retrospect I'm sure it was Hojo's guys looking for ways to get me killed. They must've tipped off the Wutai patrols. We weren't over there for very long, just a couple days, and we should have been technologically invisible. We were on our way back when everything got all messed up. Sephiroth ended up carrying Cloud, I covered their backs, and Zack tried to stay behind to make sure we made it out, the self-sacrificial idiot. He was down and there were three more soldiers he couldn't see sneaking up on him, and I…well, they would've killed him. Or tried," she said stubbornly.

Devon's eyes went wide then, and he held his arms out to his sister wordlessly. Tried to stay behind to make sure you made it out? Gee, I wonder why that served as a trigger. Diana wriggled into his side and put her head on his shoulder, gingerly wrapping her arms around his bony torso. He cleared his throat in a moment. "So. I guess, uh, I'm not the faster runner anymore? I mean, if I tried to escape."

Diana snorted. "Resistance is futile. And yeah, I could hold you down with my pinky finger. Even if you weren't all skin and bone."

Her brother's nose twitched. "…Gods, that's terrifying."

She grinned back at him with far too many teeth, then appeared to consider something. "Goddess, we're gonna need to feed you."

About half an hour later, Diana's PHS rang. "Damn, what now," she muttered, digging it out of her uniform pocket and retreating to a corner of the room. "This is Loveless."

"Yes, this is Lazard. Sorry to bother you again so soon, but if you have a moment. This line is secure but can only be guaranteed so for a few minutes, so if you are in appropriate company…"

"Director," Diana said, perhaps a bit louder than necessary, for the benefit of the others in the room. Cloud and Tifa faced her sharply, and Devon swore as he tried to maneuver around the IV from where he was doing gentle leg exercises. "Of course. There's no need to worry."

"Splendid. I have discussed matters at length with…a select few others—" Diana assumed he meant Tseng— "and there's been a slight change in strategy. If you agree to it."

"Sir?"

"We thought it might be prudent to reveal your...situation...to the public. It would make for an overwhelmingly popular news story. The media would be all over it." He was speaking very carefully. Given that Diana had assured him that Hojo knew far too much about Shinra these days, he probably wasn't taking any chances. Even after assuring her the line was secure, she could tell he was still acting on the off chance that someone could indeed be listening. Good. "It would garner so much public attention. And I know you are aware that public opinion has not exactly been soaring as of late, and we thought we could use this to our advantage. I'm sure you agree."

So he meant to make a storm of her story, both to adhere to her wishes and to distract Hojo enough to hopefully lull him into a false sense of security. At least, she was pretty sure that was what he meant.

"Fair enough, sir. Go on."

"If you want to do this, we can have a hint, just a whiff, leaked to the media and call a press conference immediately after. Tomorrow, of course. I believe we've all had quite enough excitement for one day."

"I…think that sounds like a fair idea, sir. Yes, I…I think that would be for the best."

"Excellent. If you could come by my office tomorrow morning, say around nine? We can discuss strategy and the like. For now, though, if it isn't too much to ask, please remain as Devon until we make the reveal."

"Of course, sir. Understood."

"Until tomorrow then."

"Yes sir, thank you." She hung up and hummed thoughtfully, turning to her watching friends and brother. "Change of strategy. We're leaking my secret and making tabloid bait out of it."

Devon winced. "Really?"

"Think about it, though. Tseng must have felt too uneasy with all the weird stuff that's gone on today, seemingly with no explanation. Running under the assumption that Hojo has eyes and ears Goddess knows where. So we have to make something of it. That plus the fake medical reports—congrats, you're legally dead for the second time—" she remarked to her brother, who threw his IV-free arm in the air with a sarcastic 'wheeeee'— "and it'll throw him off and hopefully lull him into a false sense of security." She frowned at her PHS. "At least I think that's the idea. I'm going to see Lazard again in the morning to strategize."

"So, uh, press conference? I heard just a little bit," Cloud admitted.

"Yeah, I guess." Diana laughed nervously. "I suppose that's why we'll leave plenty of time for strategizing. I have to stick to the uniform until then, but…oh man, if I think about it I'll just get nervous. Better to just wait til tomorrow, when the Director and I can discuss our, you know. Angle? I don't know."

Cloud had been watching thoughtfully. "So…we've established that you had extensive contingency plans in place in the event that this whole thing went really bad. Have you considered what'll happen if you stay at Shinra?"

Diana froze. "I mean. It'll be different. People will undoubtedly think of me differently. How exactly, I'm not sure. I…guess I was thinking more along the lines of how to handle guys picking fights with me than anything else."

"Have you thought about how you're going to approach your other acquaintances? Max and Shane? The men you led in Wutai?" Cloud's voice was quiet.

Diana picked at the bedsheets. "I guess I didn't really get that far," she admitted, equally quiet. "I just…would want them to understand that this doesn't change anything. But I had my reasons, and I want them to understand what they were and why they're important. I suppose the best thing to do if anyone asks questions is to just…be honest." She looked up. Tifa was nodding.

Devon nudged her shoulder. "Hey, if the Director's got your back, then they can only talk so much shit. Not to mention the First Class Triumvirate. Also, it'll probably kind of depend on what happens tomorrow, how people react and everything."

Diana hummed in agreement. They were all silent for a moment, until Cloud had a thought. Their new Second Class responsibilities included assisting in cadet education, and the Director had wasted no time in putting them on the timetable. "Monday morning classes are going to be wild."

Saturday, 14 September, 0906 hours

"So do I…how rigid do I need to be, is what I'm asking, I guess? Am I a strictly professional model soldier?"

"Eh…" Lazard waffled a bit. He was situated behind his desk as usual, with Diana in front of it, and in a chair for once. "You're…young, but a professional soldier with a reputation. And you're a professional soldier, but you're young, you have a life. We shouldn't kill the buzz by making you a cardboard cutout. But also, yes, very professional. Smile enough but not too much."

"Okay. That I can do." Diana sighed in relief, but stopped short. "Sir, should I be in my SOLDIER uniform for this?"

Lazard's neutral face was back. "Would you be more comfortable in civilian clothing?"

"Less, I think. I…should be a seen as a SOLDIER, shouldn't I? Since this is about my career, and the implications for Shinra. And I'll be more recognizable that way. And pretty unmistakable. I don't want to look like a…a figurehead, or…"

"A pretty face that we can put on a poster but doesn't do the work?" supplied Lazard, straight-faced.

"I—yes. Sir." Diana had the urge to almost laugh at the impenetrability of his poker face, but quickly sobered. "And, well, this is going to sound strange, but it's not that I don't want to be treated differently than any other SOLDIER. I do expect that I'll be treated differently; it would be naïve to think otherwise. I've been thinking about it, and in a way it's not about being treated the same under the same rules; it's about differences being accommodated by the rules. I don't want to be treated like your standard SOLDIER because every SOLDIER up until this point has been a man, and men are not the default. Say we had female SOLDIERs—men have never needed resources for maternity leave or sex-specific healthcare needs. They don't need a clause for sex-based discrimination. They aren't already discriminated against and in the worse cases targeted within pretty much every military body to ever exist. So if we have women in SOLDIER, we need to give them the rights and protections that they need as women. And we probably need to review the handbook for everybody in the process."

Lazard appeared to digest this, then suddenly began scribbling furiously on a notepad. "Damn, I need to remember that. Well, rather—" he looked up at her pensively— "we should have that for you to include in your address. After all, out of the two of us, the one who is actually a woman should be the one presenting her ideas on this."

"Ah." An address, right. Because Diana was so fond of organized public speaking. "Is it alright to, you know, read off a script, sir?"

"Yes, I think so. It would probably be best to have you on script for your opening remarks." Lazard looked up and must have seen her unease. "It will certainly be a small press conference. Very exclusive. Not as if there won't be all manner of rumors being printed on every publication in Midgar by morning."

"Now that, I'm prepared for."

Lazard smiled, ironically but not unkindly. "I'm sure you can't have had much contact with our PR department, but trust me when I say there will always be someone there telling you exactly where to go and what to do. And like I said, it will be very small. I'll drop the big headline first, give the gist of what's going on, and speak a bit about the Company's take on all this. You are, after all, my responsibility. Then I'll introduce you." He looked at her very seriously. "No matter what the reaction in the room is, just plow on through what's scripted. If you're comfortable, we can take questions afterward."

Diana was nodding. "Yes, I think that would be good. Transparency. But sir, shouldn't—I mean, I assumed we would follow some kind of story along the lines that you were aware of my identity all along, and it was all just a deep cover social experiment. Or something."

Lazard chuckled. "Tempting as it is, such a thing would likely require the approval of the President himself, and certainly the knowledge of the Turks and our First Class operatives. And I think it's fairly obvious that no one was aware of your situation." There went that eyebrow again. Then he said, very quietly, "And even if it were over my own corpse, I would not allow the President or his son to take credit for an event such as this within my own department."

Diana swore the temperature had dropped several degrees. "Noted, sir."

"Now." He was smiling again. "Let's make sure we have our story straight, shall we?"

Shinra Electric Company Public Relations Center, 1702 hours

The story could not be straighter. Diana grimaced and wiped her sweaty palms on her pants again. She was in her full maroon-colored Second Class uniform (minus weapons, unfortunately), which still felt new and odd and very starchy, especially with her chest not bound. Her hair was pulled back into a bun. She basically still looked like the Devon that everyone knew, just, well, promoted. And pretty obviously female.

Next to her was a terrifyingly calm woman with a headset and a clipboard, and she meant business. Diana thought she might actually be an android programmed for people management, or whatever. Maybe she had a hidden weapons arsenal. An attack mode for unruly paparazzi.

If only. She was trying really hard not to think about the deathly silence coming from the press conference room. She could see Lazard's profile as he went on to speak very diplomatically about her accomplishments and how this all came about, but she felt rather like she was in grade school again, waiting to go onstage for her yearly role as an angry villager or a tree in the class play.

Maybe I can disguise myself as a potted plant and they'll never know. She had to slap a hand over her own mouth to cut off a hysterical burst of giggles. No-nonsense Headset next to her barely even blinked.

Right. Business. I am a young, determined professional SOLDIER who has made a name for herself who is sort of apologetic but really isn't oh god the Director's looking at me.

As it turned out, Headset was also looking at her and gesturing her toward the podium. She heard a whisper of "You'll be fine" with a gentle push to her back as her legs moved on their own and she took the podium as Lazard stepped to the side. She avoided looking at the small crowd until the last possible moment, but look she did.

The lights were a little more blinding than she'd expected, but her eyes quickly adjusted. Right, her eyes—it was important that they see her eyes. No brand of color contacts could fake the mark of the mako. There were only a couple dozen people in the room, but about half of those wielded cameras, and it was a bit overwhelming. She couldn't have picked out an individual face even if she'd wanted to.

She leaned into the mic a bit awkwardly. "Good—" her voice cracked. GODDAMMIT. She cleared her throat to the side. Get your shit together, Diana. "Good evening. My name is Diana Loveless, SOLDIER of the Second Class." The crowd did this weird ooh-ing and aah-ing thing like they hadn't quite believed the Director.

Oh, she would make them believe all right. The Director had said "plow," and plow she did. She remembered to get a little subtly choked up—while reminding herself it wasn't her reality anymore—when speaking of her (unnamed) dear beloved brother, who had (mysteriously) passed away before his time, and how she was inspired to live out his dream. Compounded with the good old "I wanted to prove that girls can do anything boys can," she painted a picture of a young, idealistic but determined cadet clawing her way to SOLDIER, and how painful it was not to be able to confide in anybody for fear of punishment from the Company.

She also may have dropped the hint that she could take out the entire room in a flash if she wanted to, and that she was literally a war legend in an enemy country.

She ended with the hope that Shinra might reconsider its policies in light of her actions, and expand their research and resources to allow for a more diverse SOLDIER body, and when she stopped reading and came back to herself, the room still seemed to have no idea how to react.

Then, like the scene had been unmuted, reporters burst out of their seats and into a flurry of questions.

Thankfully, Lazard came up beside her again and leaned in to the mic. "Yes, we will be taking a few questions." He sounded way too mild for how Diana felt. "How about right here, ah, Channel Four?"

A blonde woman brandished a notepad while her cameraman advanced on the shallow stage. "Yes, SOLDIER Loveless! We've all heard of the mako treatments that all SOLDIERs receive, and the Director himself has acknowledged that they were only seriously tested on men. How did you consider the risk of going into a procedure that could have killed or seriously harmed you?"

Oh thank Gaia. That was an easy one. "Well, I figured, how different could it really be?" That got a couple chuckles from the back. "No, Shinra has a truly excellent medical staff, so at the very least I felt safe under their care. Regardless, though, it was simply a risk I was willing to take. If my superiors saw fit to recommend me for SOLDIER in the first place, then I saw no reason to back down from that risk."

"SOLDIER Loveless!" A man in one of the middle rows. "It seems you've taken a lot of risks with this plan of yours. No one, absolutely no one, knew of these plans?"

"That is correct. Director Deusericus was not exaggerating." A couple titters, and some buzzing at the confirmation straight from the horse's mouth.

"That must have been very difficult."

"It was."

"How do you think your fellow SOLDIERs will react to this?"

Diana breathed. Okay, this was harder. "Many of my comrades in arms are also my friends," she began slowly. "I simply hope that they can see my reasoning, and see that this does not change who I am. Nor does it change anything about my abilities as a SOLDIER. We as human beings are social and emotional creatures—" she smiled at the journalist— "but whatever may arise, I hope it will not affect my professional relationships and that I can continue to work cohesively with my comrades, for the good of the Company." An afterthought, but whatever. Cameras flashed like crazy, and Diana was suddenly very, very glad that this was not being broadcast live.

Lazard shifted next to her, and Diana looked to him in surprise, moving aside. "If I may add to that," he said, "we can all rest assured that this news will not be a detriment within SOLDIER. Diana Loveless is an excellent SOLDIER and a true team player who has the respect of both her peers and her commanding officers, and I invite anyone under my command who takes issue with her identity to come to me personally."

If they don't "deal personally" with Genesis or whoever first. Diana could have cackled at the thought, but had to wrestle it quickly into a grateful smile in the Director's direction.

"A question for Miss Loveless!" came a voice from toward the back.

"SOLDIER Loveless, if you will," said Lazard, still relaxed, but there was no mistaking the emphasis as he stepped aside for Diana again. Diana wouldn't have pushed it—she wasn't really used to being addressed formally—but in this situation, it was important, and after all, she certainly wasn't a civilian.

"Right, right," said the reporter in a way that clearly conveyed that he really didn't care, and that made Diana care. "Well, this is all turning out rather dramatic, but on the note of relationships—"

Motherfucking jam on toast, Diana thought, here it comes. I take it all back. Kill me. Kill me now.

"—since all these public sightings of your 'twin sister' are actually all you as well—" he actually made air quotes and his nasally voice was getting irritating fast— "could you possibly explain these—" he dramatically whipped out a couple grainy photos— "that were taken over the course of the past several weeks?" He looked rather triumphant already.

Diana almost panicked. With her SOLDIER sight, the photos were clearly of her and Zack out and about, and they were very obviously a couple. He was a distinctive figure, and some kind of scandalous commanding-officer-workplace-relationship story could totally overshadow what she was trying to do here. Not to mention completely destroy her street cred and risk her image as being flattened to some kind of flighty, sexualized femme fatale. Oh Goddess she was dead, she was going to get eaten alive by the tabloids and—

Wait. Lazard had said that if anyone tried to derail her, throw her off her game in any way, often the best strategy was to distract them. Distract the entire room.

She could do that.

So she leaned over the podium, squinting exaggeratedly at the photos that her enhanced vision could practically count the pixels of. "Hmm, those look a little blurry to me," she mused, garnering a couple delayed chuckles once people got the joke. "Am I supposed to be looking at that person in the background? Oh, no, that's a man… Hm, it kind of looks like someone was just staking out the cinema on Loveless Ave hoping to find something interesting—oh, is that it? The street sign? Because it's my last name? Ah, you're a real kidder, aren't you?" Several people were outright laughing by now, and the man's indignant follow-ups were becoming both less coherent and less audible. "If we wanted to take a really riveting look at all the times I've been out into the city in all my time in Midgar, we'd be here for days, my friend. However—" she got very close to the microphone and tried to give the impression that she could vaporize him with a look while still smiling amiably— "I wasn't under the impression that a discussion of my personal life would be relevant to the conversation today."

Nailed it. She began scanning the crowd for another question before he could get a chance to respond. "Yes, in the middle there?"