Don't Play With Fire (Turks FFVII)

XLIV) Solace

"Are you okay?" Elena leaned over, pressing her shoulder to mine and lowering her voice as the car rolls over a few bumps in the road. "It's okay if you're not."

We were on our way to one of Kilmister's hospitals in Cliff Resort. Reno veered around a pothole, grumbling his complaints to Rude, who sat in the passenger seat. In the row in front of us, Rufus stared hard out the window on one side as Tseng silently threatened to punish any suspicious movements from the doctor wedged between them.

I nodded, leaning my head against the glass and watching raindrops race each other down the pane. "I'm okay. I'm just tired." I puffed out a sarcastic laugh, emotionally, mentally, and physically drained. "Very relieved it's over."

"I bet," she replied quietly, giving me my space and tucking her hair behind her ear.

But, I guess, it's never really over, is it?

I never wanted to acknowledge the elephant in the room once it became obvious, but after having the stigma removed, Mother's voice came back with a vengeance and it all came spilling out. Elena stepped in to calm me down and Reno disappeared for a while. I guess the others figured it out on their own if no one else told them.

Gods, how long has it been? About ten months since Tseng asked Elena out? Needless to say, Reno and I made a big deal out of it and Rufus rolled his eyes, the miserable little brat. Soon after, Kilmister began to have withdrawals from his pain relievers and forced Rufus to have us find more of them. Elena left to find refills as we decided what we wanted to do with this man that we didn't trust. Rufus wanted to hang onto him a while longer, perhaps hoping that the doctor could make his life a little longer.

And then one day, out of the blue, I went to Kilmister's room to find his brains blown out all over his bedsheets. Judd fessed up without much pushing, but he refused to give up where he'd gotten the gun. The mood shifted drastically that day. Those Rufus and I had helped save from the Kilmister's hellhole left to make homes for their final days. The Turks took the president to a Shinra lodge outside of the Midgar border. Despite its abandonment, it was in pretty good shape. Besides pretending Rufus was going to be okay, we mostly busied ourselves with patching holes and figuring furniture out.

One day, two years after Meteor struck, Reno and Rude were repainting the sign outside the lodge while I sat in shade beneath the outstretched limbs of a tree whose leaves were just starting to grow back in. With a deep-set frown, I tried to pull my rod apart to remove the limit on its shock.

"What's 'healin' mean?" Reno asked, stepping back and wiping at the sweat on his forehead with the back of his hand. The desert was getting hotter by the day in its return to spring.

Rude pulled his shades off to wipe off the lenses, glancing over at the redhead. He took a breath to speak, but Rufus entered the conversation abruptly, pushing the wheels on his wheelchair to guide himself toward us.

"To heal the world," he explained, sounding alarmingly excited about the prospect.

I remember frowning at the idea. For as long as I'd known the world, it was broken. There was never a single lasting light; even the last Ancient was stolen by the greed of Shinra in its attempts to create the ultimate human weapon. The concept of Shinra's head living in a lodge named after his last hope—to rebuild the world—didn't sit well. Still, it beat rolling over and dying.

"What's up your sleeve, Shinra?" I asked. Grimacing, I flinched when the interiors of my rod zapped my finger.

"You'll have to wait and see."

Reno watched him wheel away with a scoff. He dropped his paintbrush onto the dirt and undid another button on his shirt, fanning his face. "Jerk."