Disclaimer: I do not own FFVII

Warnings: Tissue, Goodbye

Mindless Babble: The conclusion to this two part fic, which, BTW, was the first I wrote in this fandom. I hope you enjoy it and that you will be kind and review. Thank you! And...
Happy Holidays from Linchi Productions
Linchi, her "Mews" Tora and "Mews-in-training" Loki!

Chapter 2

Reno nearly had to tuck and roll with Cloud as the driver dropped them off in front of the dilapidated church. He tried to thank the man, but was left talking to a puff of dust as the truck took off. Reno shook his head and walked into the church half carrying/ half dragging his companion.

“I hope this works,” Reno muttered. He paused a moment to look around. The first time he had been here, he had been on a mission to kidnap a flower girl. He tried to swallow the guilt as he remembered what had happened to her. It only worsened when Cloud, perhaps sensing where he was, whispered the girl’s name.

“Aeris.”

The former Turk felt even worse then when the truck driver had recognized him. He had forgotten the Cloud had fallen for her. And he had a hand in killing her.

“I’m sorry.” The two words sounded so cheap in comparison to what he actually felt. He moved towards the pools stopping at the edge.

The water was so pure, it seemed to be made of liquid crystal. Yellow and white flower petals still floated across the mirror like surface, almost as if to remind the one time assassin’s sins. The silence that surrounded the pair felt as if it were almost tangible. Reno ignored the feelings of claustrophobia and, picking up Cloud, stepped into the water.

His breath was stolen away as pain lanced through his body. He pulled Cloud closer to him, afraid of dropping him before they reached deeper water. Tears streaming down his face, Reno plunged forward struggling to ignore the increasing pain. By the time the water had reached his hips, the redhead could barely form a coherent thought. The only one he could keep was to not let Cloud drown. With that, he released his burden, making sure to keep the blond head above the water.

Reno watched as the dark lines of the disease glowed on the otherwise pale skin before it seemed to brush of like some sort of radiant dust. In a matter of seconds it was over. Mako blue eyes fluttered open.

“What… the church? How did…” Cloud finally noticed the Turk and stood up. “Reno, what’s wrong?”

The slender body was being wracked with so much pain, it was all Reno could do to keep standing. Trembling, he tried to back out of the water only to have his weakened legs go out from under him. The pain multiplied as he was completely submerged. The scream of agony that escaped from pale lips echoed through the church as Cloud pulled him from the water.

As soon as his feet hit the floor boards, Reno pushed away from his rescuer, stumbling into the shadows. At that same moment, the doors to the church flew open. Both men looked up to see a beautiful brunette racing towards the ex-SOLDIER that knelt on the floor. Two others followed at a less frantic pace.

“Cloud! I was so worried about you!” Tifa flung her arms around the soaked blond. Cloud readily returned the hug, surprised by how happy he was to have her in his arms. “What happened to you?’

Cloud pulled away from the girl, but slid his hands around hers. “Apparently Rufus had a change of heart about me. They tried to infect me again with the Geostigma.”

Tifa’s face loss it color. “Are you alright? Did the water help you?’

Cloud smiled at her concern. “I’m fine.” He tried to stand up to prove the point, but found that the sickness had left him weaker then he thought. Tifa’s heightened reflexes were the only things that saved him from hitting his head on the ground as he passed out.

Tifa sighed as she looked up to see Yuffie grinning down at her. “What would he do without you?” the young ninja asked. She helped the other girl lift the dead weight that was Cloud, taking one arm over her shoulder while Tifa took the other

“Probably hit his head a lot more!” Tifa turned and looked at the third member of their party, the one that had led her here. “Are you coming, Vincent?”

“There is one more here to take back with us.” The raven haired man stepped from the darkness, holding up an unsteady Turk at his side.

“Reno!” Both girls screamed the name, causing Cloud to wince.

“What are you doing here?” Tifa asked, immediately suspicious.

Reno whispered a single word that only Vincent heard. The older man shook his head. “It’s nothing you need to worry about, Tifa. Reno was the one that brought Cloud here.”

A blush crept into the woman’s cheeks. “I… I’m sorry Reno. I shouldn’t…”

“It’s okay, Lockheart. I wouldn’t trust me either.”

Tifa frowned at the response but was reminded of her first priority when Cloud’s breath hitched. “Come on. Let’s get you guys back to the bar.”

She and Yuffie took Cloud out to the waiting truck followed by Reno and Vincent, the smaller of the two succumbing to the lull of sleep.

-o-

A few hours later, Tifa found a shadow leaning against the window in her room staring outside. The stars were hidden by the veil of thick clouds. What little light coming from the streetlamps below the window outlined a slender frame, nude from the waist up. One arm wrapped around the opposite shoulder while the other protected the stomach. Tifa moved to turn on the lights.

“Please don’t.”

Her slender hand dropped back to her side. “Reno? Why are you in my room? In the dark? Alone?”

Pale lips twitched in an attempt to actually smile. “Sorry Lockheart. I didn’t know this was your room. I just… the kids were in their room and everyone else was with Strife. I didn’t want to intrude.” A pause then, “How is he?” The man at the widow never turned away from the gathering storm clouds.

“Sound asleep.” Tifa noticed the slight tremor in Reno’s body. “Are you hurt?”

Reno actually did smile, but it was filled with too much pain to be an honest one. “The day I ‘betrayed’ Shinra, Rufus had me removed from his office by four SOLDIERs. I thought they were taking me to the holding cells but they took me down to the labs instead. Before I was handed over to Hojo’s old assistants, I was stripped naked and my arms chained to the floor. There, I was tortured- beaten, burned, whipped and poisoned. I could’ve handled it, I’m a Turk. I’m trained to deal with stuff like that. But I looked up and saw them…”

Despite herself, Tifa found herself asking, “Who?”

“My family. Tseng. Elena. R… Rude.” He choked on that last name. “They stood there and watched! They must’ve thought I’d betrayed them, as well. But, I didn’t.”

“Reno…”

“Shortly after that, I was given to the protégés. You can see what they did.” Reno finally turned to face Tifa. He had taken off his goggles, the once hidden glow of Mako infused eyes now revealed. “It was a more intense version of what Cloud went through.”

Tifa’s hands flew to her mouth in shock and horror. Her eyes filled with tears.

“For three weeks I was suspended in a tube of Mako, taken out only to be a lab rat for a bunch of experiments, tests and to be injected with Geostigma,” Reno continued, his voice wavering. “I’ve forgotten what it’s like to not be in pain.”

Something fell from his hand, startling Tifa. The moon broke through the storm that had been gathering for a moment, bathing the room in lunar light revealing the knife that Reno had held onto after the fight with the creature in the wastelands. The blade was tinted red. Tifa worried what she would see as her eyes traveled up the man’s body. It was worse then she feared. His chest was covered in both old scars and new wounds, the blood running down to pool at his feet. Both arms were bathed in red that ran from hundreds of self inflicted slashes. Black lines crept under the lines of red.

Reno suddenly pushed himself away from the wall. “I don’t belong here. I’m sorry Tifa…” He stumbled forward, intent on leaving. He didn’t get far.

Seconds later found Tifa cradling the Turks body. “Hang on Reno; I know we’ve got a Heal Materia downstairs, just hold on!” She screamed for Yuffie to grab the small orb but the man she held shook his head, red hair brushing the wooden floor.

“Don’t waste it. I’m already dead. They made sure of that,” Reno sighed as the edges of his vision darkened. “Least I got one dream to come true…”

Tears streamed down Tifa’s cheeks, though she doubted the Turk could see them. “What dream was that?”

“I’ll die in a beautiful woman’s arms.” His eyes closed for the last time and his chest ceased to rise.

Tifa stared in shock at the shell of a man she hardly even knew. She felt a pair of arms wrap around her shoulders and knew it was Cloud, offering some of his own strength to her.

“He’s gone, Cloud. He died believing that he was alone, that nobody cared. Not even his family…”

Vincent stood in the doorway, an arm around the young woman from Wutai, her face buried in the man’s red cape trying to hide the tears. The small glowing ball that she had retrieved from the bar was resting at her feet, dropped when she realized that some wounds couldn’t be cured. Both had heard the story and Vincent finally really understood Nanaki’s words.

The three people dressed in blue suits that had gathered behind the pair had only heard Tifa’s words. For one, it was too much. Rude pushed past Vincent and tried to reach his former partner. He was stopped dead in his tracks by a powerful arm wrapping around his chest.

“Sorry, Rude, but you know I can’t let you touch him.” Tseng’s own eyes held a pain so deep, the dark skinned man had to look away.

Tifa glared at the pair of Turks. “Why? Because he was a traitor in your eyes?”

“No.” A soft voice spoke as Elena joined her two comrades. “Because of the Mako conditioning we received when we became Turks. This strand of Geostigma only attacks those that have Mako in their systems.”

“His body will have to be burned,” Tseng said, the tremor in his voice belaying emotions that were running rampant within him. “So the stigma won’t be able to be used again.”

“How did this happen?” Tifa asked, her tears falling upon pallid features that had once glowed with life. “How could you stand there and watch him being tortured?!” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “How could you abandon him?”

Tseng saw the effect the woman’s words had on his co-workers. Elena looked crestfallen while Rude looked ready to plunge the knife that Reno had used into his own heart. He took both of their shoulders and pushed them through the door.

“Elena, take Rude downstairs and give him a shot of the strongest stuff you can find. And then give yourself the same.” He waited until he heard their footsteps on the stairs. He turned his attention on the rest that were gathered in the room. “I would rather discuss this elsewhere.”

Cloud could see the man was hurting inside. “Tifa, take the others downstairs. I’ll be there in a moment.”

Tifa nodded mutely. Cloud released her, letting her join their friends. His eyes met Vincent’s, asking the former Turk to look after the two girls. Vincent agreed, wrapping his free arm around the woman to guide her to the stairs.

Tseng watched them go. Then he knelt next to the body of his friend, his brother in arms. He closed his eyes and whispered a chant in his native language. Cloud recognized it as a prayer to guide the dead into paradise. “Watching was our warning. Reno didn’t see the armed SOLDIERs guarding us…”

Then he stood and without looking back, left the room.

-o-

Cloud found a somber and uneasy bunch when he came down the stairs. Rude and Elena were sitting together at a table, Tseng standing behind them, creating a broken circle. Tifa sat at the same table with them, a bottle of 151 sitting between them with four tiny glasses surrounding it. Vincent was still holding a trembling Yuffie by bar.

“First off, Rufus had nothing to do with this,” Tseng stated. “The cook that prepared his meals was poisoning him with mind altering drugs. Unfortunately, we didn’t find that out until this afternoon.”

“Then Reno never betrayed you?” Tifa accused, her eyes flashing dangerously.

Rude shook his head. “Reno would never betray Shinra. It wasn’t until last week when we got the assignment he refused that we realized something was really going wrong.”

“But we never gave up on Reno!” Elena choked out. “We tried to rescue him…”

The four friends watched the layers of harshness peeled away, revealing the deep bond of the Turks. It treaded waters as profound as their own. Elena found herself in the embrace of Tseng, while Rude held her shaking hands in his own.

“What was the assignment Reno refused?” Cloud asked softly.

“To kill you,” Rude said even softer.

“It was part of the cook’s plan. He was going to have Rufus kill each one of us and then take away the drugs.” Tseng swallowed. “The cook knew that none of us would go after you so it was the perfect assignment to make us look like we were traitors to a messed up mind.”

“But why?” Everyone looked up at the new voice that had joined in. Yuffie was standing on her own, tears still betraying her. Her dark eyes were aflame with anger. “Why did he hate you all so much?”

Elena’s answer sent a chill through everyone. “His family lived in sector seven.”

“What will happen to him?” Vincent asked, though he already knew the answer.

“He was taken care of,” Rude growled.

“And Rufus?”

Rude looked at Cloud. “He doesn’t remember anything from the past month. We don’t want to tell him the truth…”

The blond warrior nodded. “Understandable. It would kill him to know that he was the cause of one of his Turk’s death.”

A moment passed before Tifa reached a hand across the table, lightly coming to rest of Elena and Rude’s hands. “Elena, I’m sorry for what I said to you. I didn’t realize…”

The female Turk let a ghost smile reach her lips. “It’s alright, Tifa. What you said was true in Reno’s eyes. How could you think anything different?”

“Still,”

Elena shook her head. “Rude told me that you really scared Reno once…”

Tifa blinked in surprise. “Huh? When?”

Rude chuckled. “The night Cloud left to find those kids in the Forgotten City. You were screaming at him and Reno thought you were going to kill Cloud. Reno was ready to run.”

Elena joined with a small laugh. “The only thing that kept him there was Rude.”

Tifa giggled as she remembered the night. “I do remember that. I also remember the way the two of you high tailed it out of there afterwards!”

Yuffie spoke up then, her tears finally drying in the warmth of good memories. “I remember when you guys helped to save me and Elena on Da-chao. I wondered how someone so obnoxious looking as Reno would have made it into Shinra’s elite guard.”

Tseng snorted. “I wondered that too.”

The rest of the night was filled with laughter, tears and most of all, memories.

-o-

Rude found Elena sitting a grassy knoll not far from the Forgotten City, a place people now thought of as haunted because of Kadaj and his gang. That was where they had said goodbye to their friend for he last time. The flames had consumed the shrouded body quickly leaving only ashes which Cloud had gathered. The Turks had decided to scatter them over the ocean, a place Reno had always enjoyed going to.

“I loved him,” Elena said as Rude sat down next to her. “I loved him and never told him that. I always chastised him for his sloppy appearance, or the reckless way he threw himself into every fight. I guess I’ll never be able to tell him now.”

A pair of powerfully built arms wrapped around her shoulders and gently pulled her backward so she leaned against a solid chest. “He knew that, Elena,” Tseng said softly, wishing he could dry the woman’s tears with his words alone. “We all loved him and he returned that love in the only way he knew how.”

“He could never just say the words. He had to prove it by fighting , protecting us,” Rude said, staring up at the sky, thinking how close it came to being the same color as his partner’s eyes.

“All of us.” Cloud flopped down next to Rude, not even looking at the bigger man.

“He helped us even though a few years ago we were at each other’s throats,” Tifa said as she sat down next to Elena.

Yuffie didn’t use words to express her feelings. She merely stood behind her kinsman, letting her nimble fingers rest on his broad shoulders.

Vincent stood behind the entire group, his arms crossed. He wasn’t one to show emotion. Just the fact that he was there spoke volumes of how he felt though. He knew what Reno had felt, being used as a lab rat and not really understanding why. A tear slipped down his cheek, unnoticed by the others.

A warm breeze dried Elena’s face and she gasped in surprise. It had felt like slender fingers brushing her cheek.

“See, they’re fine. You can leave them now.”

Reno looked up from where he knelt in front of Elena to the pair that stood waiting for him. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. They never really needed me, anyway.”

The woman sighed in response. ”That’s not true. You were the one who brought them together. They’re closer then ever because of that love.

“This was your fate.”

Reno looked at the group of people gathered on the hill. He noticed the subtle things. Tifa’s hand on Elena’s, silently supporting the only female Turk. The way Cloud’s hand rested on Rude’s shoulder. The young thief’s fingers resting on his boss’ shoulders. He was the only one to witness Vincent’s mask break.

“They’re not alone,” the dark haired man said. “And you’ll see them again someday.”

“Just so long as it’s not for a very long time,” Reno replied standing up and joining the other two. “Alright, I’m ready to go now.”

The woman in pink led the way into the whiteness followed by the man with the spiky black hair. Reno took one last look at the group before following.

“I understand now. I… I love you.”

-fin-