This is far too good to have only garnered two reviews, being the best Rufus/Yuffie on the whole site along with being a high quality fic. You really convinced me that these two can work. The build-up between them was excellent, and the little signs in the tea ceremony was well-done. Their little and big interactions (her insisting they share an office, him sending the Turks to help find Marlene, etc.) made this fic feel a bit sweet, bittersweet, and almost a tad bit heartfelt. Rufus didn't feel out of character while simultaneously being more human than we're normally allowed to see. Looking at these two years, fifteen days, it seems that Rufus' promise to never lie to her was pivotal and sad. She could always trust him, but he couldn't return that. I wonder if that began to eat at her that she was the liar, not the infamous liar Rufus Shinra. Their conversations were the best, so funny yet so difficult. The ending left me feeling so happy to see that maybe (likely) they weren't cheated out of happiness in marriage.

Thanks for the hard work and great fic!

I love this story. Its the first Rufus/Yuffie I've read, and to tell you the truth, I was a bit skeptical on this pairing at first, but you OWNED this! Truly, truly remarkable characterization. You have Rufus's down to a tee, which is no easy task, he's one of the most difficult characters to write -in my opinion- so I am in awe of your effortless handling of him :D

The ending was just so perfect, and so sweet :grins: Simply priceless work, this will be one one-shot I enjoy over and over again. Well done.

I first read this over at AO3 and left kudos there, but I came over here to check out your other work, so I decided to review it here. I don't want to gush, so I'll avoid using the word 'love', but this is one of the finest pieces of fanfiction I've read in quite a while. Of course, I am of the school of thought that believes everything is better with Rufus, which, I suppose, lead me into my first point: you've done justice to your POV character here. From a writerly point of view I admire the way you developed his characterisation. My heart also ached for him. Older, sadder, wiser, humbler, crippled, more human... You took that rather tired cliche about him being cold and aloof and turned in into someone who has developed an aloof persona as a means of surviving in the world to which he was born, who is as resigned to inevitability of being hated as he is resigned to impossibility of ever fulfilling his dream of love, of someone 'who is waiting for him and wants him to be there'. He asks for nothing for himself.

One could, I suppose, argue that it was wrong of him to force Yuffie into a marriage she didn't want. But he is, above all, a realist. I don't suppose the Empress of Wutai could ever have followed her heart.

I really like fics that don't spoon-feed me, that make me pay close attention and puzzle things out. However, one thing I still can't quite decipher is the meaning of the line "there was a reason why he hadn't been in this room three months ago." Because he was still clinging to the hope of finding love? That feels likelier to me than the idea that he had been hoping to marry someone else. So I think it means that he was hoping to avoid the need for a political marriage (just as Yuffie had) but the fact that her lover was planning to propose galvanised him into action.

It shows how much bad Turkfic I read that my first assumption, when reading that the Turks had found her lover buying rings, was that they'd killed him. But no - this is NeoShinra.

Yuffie treats Rufus exactly as he deserves to be treated, at every step of the way. Her nicknames for him were great. 'Gimpy' was my favourite. I like the fact that he lets her set the pace. Her Yuffie-like gesture of affection on their first anniversary was a wonderful stroke of imagination.

One of the things that I particularly relished about this story was the way you showed people's feelings, their changes of heart, through their actions - as when Avalanche all started warming up to Rufus after he sent the Turks to help save Marlene, even though, in the end, they weren't needed. I thought that was well done: the drama was kept to a minimum, and the gesture remained at the core of the incident.

Another scene I really loved was Tseng suddenly materialising to give Rufus instructions on how to comfort a distressed woman. I know I said I wouldn't gush but that was brilliant. It encapsulates everything that I enjoyed so much about this fic: the way you have compacted such a big story into a fairly brief fic and lost none of by doing so. It said so much about Rufus, about Tseng, about their relationship, about Yuffie and the Turks' attitude towards her, in the space of a drabble.

"Rufus watched her sleep for a while, considering the idea of raising another man's child. He had promised, he knew, but confronting the actuality was something more. He'd do it still, he decided, if it was also Yuffie's." This is another example of what I'm talking about. One could (I could) write an entire chapter of Rufus angsting about this dilemma. You pare it down to its essentials, while at the same time inviting your reader to imagine for themselves the whole train of thought which has led Rufus to this conclusion.

Another part of the reason the total lack of angsting works so well is that it's evocative of your POV character: this Rufus, as I said above, is not selfish, and doesn't think much about himself.

Oh, I forgot to say that Rufus' interaction with Tifa at the wedding was another favourite scene. Once again, so much wordlessly exchanged.

However, my favourite lines of all were these: "It didn't surprise him how much he missed her ideas at work, or her affectionate mocking of his aim. He knew his own heart." I am pretty sure it is deliberate that the word "love" is never mentioned until the very end, when she asks him if he loves her, and he keeps his promise never to lie to her. You managed to paint such a clear picture of him falling in love - mostly through his attentiveness to her - that when you say "he knew his own heart", the reader knows his heart too... although this reader, at least, was just a tiny bit (pleasantly) surprised that Rufus knew his own heart so clearly.

The ending was beautiful. I read it three times.

There is somethng in ths that reminds me of Jane Austen. The simplicity of the writing (always a good thing), the repressed feelings expressed through actions, significance of small events, the subtext of a line of dialogue, the subtlety of a look.

I guess you can tell that I really, really loved this story.