ShinRa's Shake Up

Three days. It had been three days since Rufus had opened his eyes. Three days since Reno ’s world had been turned upside down, inside out, and dumped on top of him. Three days of hell- for all of them.



The red head spent those 72 hours in bed, his sleep- the first he had gotten in almost as many hours- plagued by nightmares and pain. His body as so weak, his mind so worn, and his spirit so broken that he fell into the darkness and let it consume him totally. His sleep was restless yet he hardly woke in those long hours as Elena kept watch over him. The petite blond had always had a soft spot for the red head- she looked at him like a brother; they had been through a lot together and it was killing her to see him like this.



Whether it was simply sitting up during the worst part of the night in case he needed her or holding him close when he woke from the nightmares that plagued his sleep, she was there. When the darkness took hold of him and he was lost to sleep, she would sit beside the bed, his hand held in hers gently.







The first 24 hours Reno did not move. The only movement from the bed was the steady rise and fall of his chest and the soft whispers of empty words from his nightmare plagued dreams. It was that night, as Elena kept watch, that she realized something. Despite there being only a few years between them, she looked at her fellow Turk as a younger brother. Smiling sadly she leaned over and laid her hand on the red head’s forehead; he was cool to the touch.







Standing to her feet she, she walked over and hunted through the closet on the other end of the room, searching for another blanket. Rude had done a decent job keeping the place up the past year, but he still had the organizational skills of most men. Finally, she found a small throw blanket and brought it back, carefully pulling it over Reno ’s sleeping form. Slowly standing up she looked down at him and as she turned to go back and start reorganizing the closet she felt a hand grab hers weakly. She looked down into soft grey eyes as Reno looked up at her.







“ Reno , how are you feeling?” she asked softly as she sat down on the edge of the bed and held his hand gently.







“Like shit” the red head groaned as he pushed himself up slightly.







“Just rest, Reno . You need to rest.”







“Rufus…”







“Rufus is fine. The others are taking care of him. It’s you we are worried about right now, Reno .”







Elena looked down at her partner, fear, sadness, and guilt gripping at her. Fear over what the future held for not just Reno and Rufus but for all of them. Sadness over what Reno was going through and how powerless any of them were to truly help. And guilt because of the times she should have made Reno leave in the past year before he got the way he was now. Taking a deep breath she pushed it all from her mind; dwelling on the past and getting lost in it would do nothing for them now.







“Take care of him, Elena…the old Rufus is in there somewhere… I know it…”







Reno laid his head back as his eyes closed slowly. Elena leaned forward and laid a gentle hand on the side of his face.







“Just rest Reno …”







She sat there watching as the red head fell back into the darkness, his breathing growing slower. Gently she laid a hand on his chest, feeling the heart beat beneath her hand, as it slowly reached a more even and calm beat. For a long while she sat there, until she was sure he was deep in sleep, then stood to her feet and pulled her cell phone from her pocket. With a glance over her shoulder at Reno , still asleep, she put the phone to hear ear as she heard the voice on the other line.







“Rude… Tseng… it’s me. It’s still pretty bad… how’s Rufus?”







“Doing as well as can be expected. He had another breakdown last night, got pretty intense.”







“ Reno again?” Elena asked her voice quiet.







“Yeah, one minute begging to see him, the next cussing us out for mentioning his name.”







“Tseng, Reno woke up a little while ago.”







“What happened?” Tseng’s voice betrayed the urgency he felt.







“All he’s asking about is Rufus. He’s convinced that the Rufus from a year ago is still there somewhere and will come back…I can’t help but wonder that myself.”







“Elena, I told you. You cannot get caught up in Reno ’s hopeless dreams. The Rufus that Rude and I deal with every night is who he is now. What Reno remembers…”







“What Reno remembers is someone he loved and someone who loved him back!”







“Elena, they were employer and employee. We cannot let our decisions be based on the whims of an individual when the best medical minds available are telling us how things are. I know it hurts you to see Reno like this, it’s the same for all of us, but we cannot base our decisions on his whimsical thoughts and emotions. There was nothing there Elena, it was in Reno ’s head.”



“Tseng you know that is not true. You know as well as any of us how close they were. It wasn’t a secret. All of us could see it, if we took the time to look. Maybe it was fear or uncertainty, or maybe jealousy or something else- but whatever it was, it blinded you to be able to see what the two of them had. Why can you not understand what Reno is feeling and going through?”







“Because I do not see the good it will do to let Reno get close to Rufus again. He went a year without him and it nearly killed all of us. The Rufus who we see now is NOT the Rufus that Reno remembers. What is the point in letting him get hurt again? Reno should have nothing to do with him, Elena.”







“He had the one person he cared for and loved the most taken from him, waiting a year for him, and now that Rufus is alive you keep Reno away from him! Why, Tseng?”







“Because there is no good that can come from it. If the Rufus of now is who he is permanently then Reno will die from the shock- actually it’s a miracle he has not died already. If the old Rufus is dead and gone, what good can be done by letting Reno get his hopes up?”







“But what if the old Rufus is still there? Do we just give up all hope and admit defeat? Do we throw our hands up and walk away, walk away from the life we all know- that you knew- for so long?”







“I know this isn’t easy for you Elena. I know how close you were to Reno … you want to see him happy again. We all want that. We all want to see things go back the way they were a year ago, but we have to be honest.”







“I am being honest, Tseng. I think you are the one who is deceiving yourself by not allowing yourself to admit that you are afraid of what will happen, Tseng.”







“Elena…”







“Just shut up Tseng. I don’t want to hear anymore tough talk about how this is how things are and we should just accept it. Reno won’t stop fighting. You know this, and you are going to kill him faster by keeping him away than Rufus could!”







Elena flipped the phone shut and dropped it onto the table as she walked back to the bed and sat down in the chair, watching Reno sleep. She glanced at her watch. It was midnight, yet strangely, she didn’t feel tired at all…











Tseng and Rude sat in the small apartment that now served as the makeshift headquarters for the remnant of the ShinRa Company. They had salvaged what files they could and any of the paperwork each one had been in possession of was now kept in Tseng’s apartment. This night, he and Rude had spent long hours debating what the future held for them, ShinRa, and the empire. Neither one wanted to give up, but both were logical thinkers, being unable to ignore the glaring obstacles that were facing them, but things were not going well at all though, on any front. They had left the hospital around 10, making their way to the apartment; there was much they needed to discuss. Their experience that same evening with Rufus had presented many more questions- ones which had little to no answer readily available to them. That was when Elena had called. Rude sat silent, as always, listening to the conversation on the speaker phone. Several times Tseng had glanced over at him, seeking his support in dealing with Elena, yet he remained silent as ever. Tseng closed his phone and set it on the table as he rubbed his eyes and sighed.







“Thanks for leaving me high and dry Rude” he said bitterly.







“I will talk to her,” was Rude’s simple reply.







Tseng shook his head and glanced over the papers that were in the open file in front of him.







“So, about this” he said picking up one of the files. “If there is any hope for ShinRa to recover, we have to deal with them.”







Tseng dropped the file onto the table between them, the pages falling open to a list of names and dates. At the top, in bold red letters it read “AVALANCHE”.







“They do pose a problem,” Rude said, pushing the sunglasses farther up on his nose. “You want to try and contact them?”







“We have to do something. They don’t exactly have the friendliest relations with us, or us with them. But if there is any hope of rebuilding what we had…” Tseng trailed off as he rubbed his head, the pounding in his skull driving him crazy.







Rude nodded slowly as he picked up the file and scanned the names and information listed. The names were familiar to all of them. Cloud Strife. Vincent Valentine. Zack Fair. Aerith Gainsborough. Tifa Lockheart. Barret Wallace. Red XIII. Cid Highwinds. Cait Sith. Yuffie Kisaragi.







“Who will initiate contact with them?”







Tseng looked over at the large man in front of him. He knew, just as well as Rude, that there was only one person who had enough connections with them to be the one to make the call…







“We will wait for him to recover,” Tseng said simply and Rude nodded in agreement.