Second Chances

Old Wounds, Part I

Days passed. Weeks passed. Life was getting nowhere for Jessie even as the world moved on around her.

The new life in Edge was...decent. Even Jessie had to admit that. She could at least finally see a clear blue sky above without any gigantic metal plate blocking the view. She could at least live her daily life without the fear of merciless soldiers and corporate suits coming bursting through her door and taking away everything she loves. At the very least, life was safer here.

But it didn't feel like home.

"From now on, you have to listen to everything I say," Erica Rasberry told her daughter upfront sternly and with a hint of anger in her voice, "Cut ties with your 'friends' in Avalanche or so help me, you're never going anywhere out of my sight again."

"But mom..."

"This isn't up for debate!" Erica raised her voice, "I'm commanding you to stay away from those dangerous people. Yes, I said 'command', because that's what you get for hanging out with goddamn terrorists. Those people, they almost got all of us killed! They got your father killed! They almost got you killed! And you expect me to let you continue to hang out with them?"

"That's Shinra's fault, not theirs!" Jessie protested strongly. How could her mother have said something like this!? This is just a blatant victim blaming of the highest order. If it was any of those brainwashed Shinra puppets saying this, Jessie would understand, but her own mother!? How could she!?

"Yeah, and whose fault do you think it was that brought Shinra's wrath down on Sector 7 in the first place?!" Erica retorted, practically shouting at Jessie at this point, "If they hadn't run around blowing up mako reactors, Shinra wouldn't have destroyed an entire sector just to get rid of them! And to think that my own daughter was involved in all this nonsense..."

"But...!"

Jessie wanted to scream. She wanted to knock some sense into her mother that the 'terrorists' she's talking about were the only people who gave a damn about saving the planet from the bastards who wanted to suck her dry, but she just couldn't. 

Flashes to the chaotic aftermath of the Mako Reactor 1's explosion kept replaying in her mind. All those wounded people on the streets, untold numbers more struck under the debris. 

And what about the hospitals whose power suddenly got cut? What about the emergency patients whose doctors were unable to do anything during the blackout? 

What about all those traffic lights at intersections? Signal lights at train stops and crossings? Heavy machinery at factories and construction sites? 

How much chaos had happened the night they blew up the reactor?

Then she remembered the night Sector 7 fell. The night she lay bloodied on the floor with only Cloud and Tifa there to see her life fading away, a fitting end for someone responsible for so much death and destruction thanks to her callous actions. 

But then she wasn't dead anymore. She's alive while so many others in Sector 7 are not, many of whom she had known for years. Pictures of their faces flashed right before Jessie's eyes. 

Suddenly her entire body shivered. She felt dizzy. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't even hear her mother's voice even as she was practically yelling to her face. Then her legs began acting on their own.

The next thing she knew, she was running at full speed through the alleys of Edge, leaving her mother and her new home behind.

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"I don't know what I'm supposed to do, Wedge."

Jessie muttered as she laid on a couch inside Wedge's new home, her eyes stared blankly onto the ceiling while she used one hand to pet one of Wedge's cats beside her absent-mindedly. Wedge, meanwhile, was struggling trying to move from his wheelchair to an armchair next to her.