Reno was vexed. He had been woken up from a very pleasant slumber by the sound of knocking on his door and even though he had been trying very hard to ignore it for quite some time the person in question just didn't seem to be taking the hint and going away.
Which left him, as was mentioned just a moment ago, vexed. In fact, he was so vexed and had gotten himself all worked up that by this point he was afraid falling back to sleep, as he had had every intention of doing, was by now wholly out of the question and he would have no choice but to get up at the completely ungodly hour of, he opened one eye and glanced over at the clock on his nightstand and yes, though he could hardly believe it, at the completely ungodly hour of ten thirty in the morning.
With a groan he pulled himself to his feet, his mind running through the options of who it might be. The list was extremely short. In the friends column, there was Rude. In fact, he was the only one in the friends column, but he had his own key and would have let himself in so that pretty much ruled him out. That left options that ranged from a solicitor to his landlord paying a call to demand the rent he was over a month late with. Given those possibilities he was tempted to just pretend he wasn't here at all and let them bang away on the door until they finally got it in their obviously thick head that it was not going to budge. However, he was still vexed, and had decided that he wasn't going to let whoever it was off so easily. Though it would undoubtedly hurt his chances of remaining here, the sight of his landlord running down the hall being zapped in the ass by Reno's nightstick was something that made the consequences of that action almost worthwhile.
He stumbled out of the room, grabbing his nightstick off the dresser, and made his way into the living room. He cursed upon banging his toe on the chair by his desk as he walked, then, toe aching, made his way to the door, more determined than ever to make whoever it was outside pay dearly for this most grievous affront.
Making sure his nightstick was primed and ready to fry, he pulled open the door.
He opened his mouth, but then stopped when he Tifa standing in front of him. She was wearing a long dark brown coat, partially opened in the front to reveal a light blue skirt and matching blouse. She stood before him with her hands clasped in front of her, appearing, somewhat to his surprise, rather nervous.
If she was taken aback at all by the site of Reno standing in front of her with clothes disheveled, unruly hair hanging down limply, a dark shadow of stubble covering his chin and bloodshot half closed eyes, he had to admit she hid it well.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he blurted out.
"I... I just...." Tifa began hesitantly. She looked at Reno but he just frowned at her. She chewed on her lip for a moment. "Can I come in?"
He hesitated a moment, looking somewhat bewildered, as in fact he was. Tifa was just about the last person he had expected to see when he opened the door, and seeing her there definitely caught him off guard. He was tempted to say no, remembering the condition of his apartment and the reason he never brought any woman here, but he also remembered that Tifa had already been here, had already seen it at it's worse. He supposed it wouldn't do any harm for her to see it again.
"Sure, c'mon," he said.
He walked away, over to the small kitchenette. He turned on the water and splashed some in his face as Tifa came in behind him. Feeling a bit more awake, Reno turned to look at her.
"So what brings you to this lovely neck of the woods?"
It took a moment for her to reply.
"You were at the hospital yesterday, weren't you?"
Reno swallowed a few times, trying to get the bad taste out of his mouth. He plucked a bottle of liquor off the top of the refrigerator and poured some in a glass.
"Nothing like a little taste of the dog that bit ya to straighten yourself out," he commented. He held up the bottle. "You want some?"
"It's ten thirty in the morning," Tifa replied distastefully.
"Don't remind me," Reno replied ruefully. "Why the hell did you show up here so early?"
"It's not early."
"Maybe for you it's not."
He downed the drink, then looked at her, seeing that she was waiting for a response to her question.
"Yeah, I might have been there for a bit," he admitted.
Tifa nodded slowly.
"Karisa told me you were going to get her a chocolate, but you never came back."
Reno just looked down at his glass.
"Yeah, well," he muttered. "Something kinda came up."
Tifa looked at him for a long moment.
"It wasn't something by the name of Brent, was it?"
He sat down in a kitchen chair and poured himself another drink.
"No, of course not," he told her. "You think I give a damn whether he was around or not?"
Tifa didn't reply, just stood there for a moment, then, seeing that Reno wasn't going to take her coat, removed it and walked over to his desk, placing it down on the chair beside it, the very one, in fact, he had almost tripped over just a few moments earlier. She straightened, but then stopped, looking at something on his desk. He realized that she was staring at all the papers there, the printouts from Rude's with all the information he had gotten on Meteor Fever.
She reached down and picked one of them up, then turned toward him.
"You're researching Meteor Fever?" she questioned slowly.
Damn, he thought, why the hell did she have to notice that? She had eyes like a freakin' hawk.
"Yeah, maybe," he said reluctantly. "I was just curious okay? Since when did you become so nosy anyway?"
"I wasn't being nosy," Tifa retorted. "The papers were right here in front of me."
"Yeah, well, I didn't expect you to come barging in here unannounced."
She frowned.
"Well, it's not like you haven't done that to me often enough," she replied.
He had to admit she had a point there.
She came over to him, pulled up a chair and sat down as well.
"Why do you do that?" she questioned.
"Do what?"
"Act like that."
"Like what?" he said, sounding annoyed.
"Like you don't care," she replied. "Okay, I understand how you feel with what happened with your parents and all, but don't you think that maybe you've taken it a bit too far? I mean c'mon, you came to the hospital and sat with Karisa, at least for a little while, and here in your apartment I find all this information about Meteor Fever. So why do you find it so hard to admit you give a damn about someone besides yourself? There's nothing wrong with caring about another person, especially a small child, in fact, I find that aspect of you much more admirable than this tough guy image you seem to damn determined to project. So why do you do it, why do you insist on hiding like that? What is it that you're so afraid of, that someone might think that you're human? God forbid that might happen."
Reno didn't reply, just looked at her sourly. It was bad enough she had come over this early in the morning, now she was going to lecture him too?
He poured himself another drink.
Tifa sighed, tempted to suggest that maybe he had had enough, but she held her tongue, reminding herself that he was a grown man in his own place. It was up to him whether and how much he wanted to drink, no matter how she might feel about it.
"Funny you should talk about hiding," he said.
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"You seem to be pretty good at that yourself," he replied. "What are you doing with your life?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Is this really what you want? To live here in Junon, in some cardboard cutout apartment working at some strip club? You know what Rude told me the other day? He said I had given up, that I'm 'wallowing in the past'. That may be true for me but I think it's just as true for you."
"It is not!" she protested.
"Isn't it? It sure looks that way to me. Have you even been trying since your little Cloud left you? You don't want to live here, that's obvious. You're in a relationship with a guy you don't love."
"I never said I didn't love him!"
"Did you love Cloud?"
"Yes."
"You answered that pretty quick. And yet, when I asked you if you loved Brent, back at the Halo and Horns, you hesitated, then you told me it wasn't any of my business. Don't you think that's significant? You didn't have to tell me though, I could see it in your eyes."
Tifa started to open her mouth, then realized she really didn't have a response to that.
"So what, are you going to marry the guy?" Reno continued. "Couldn't really blame you if you did, I guess. He's got gil. You'll live a decent life. You'll have a nice house, a nice family. Things could be worse, but is that really what you want, going through the rest of your life pretending you're happy, having only half the cake?"
"Half the cake is better than none," she said slowly.
"Is it?" he questioned. "Is it really?"
Tifa just sat there looking uncomfortable for a moment.
"I never said I was going to marry him," she said eventually.
"So what, you'll break up with him and find someone else who you don't really care about? Spend your life in an endless circle, going from man to man, grasping at whoever you can to keep the loneliness at bay?"
Again Tifa didn't answer, but she had to admit the questions struck too close to home for her comfort. How the hell had he managed to come so close to the mark? Was he some kind of mind reader, or was she really that transparent?
"Well, what do you want me to do?" she said defensively. "What do you want me to say? It didn't work out with Cloud so now I'm looking for someone else. It may or may not work with Brent but you never know until you try. How else am I going to find the right person? At least I haven't given up."
"Haven't you? Are you really trying? I don't think you are. I think you have given up. I think you've decided that Cloud was it, he was your one shot at happiness and you've never gotten over the fact that it didn't work out. Can you honestly tell me you've ever given anyone a chance since Cloud?"
Tifa looked down at the table in front of her. She didn't know how to respond. Her hands were in her lap, and she nervously inspected her fingernails.
"I don't know," she said eventually without looking up.
He was silent for so long after that that she did eventually look up to see him gazing at her thoughtfully.
"Did you really love Cloud that much?" he asked.
Tifa looked down at the table for a moment, but the raised her eyes again almost immediately. She nodded.
"Yes."
Reno didn't reply. He lifted up his glass and looked at the liquid inside, but he didn't take a drink.
"Have you ever tried to find him?"
"What would be the point?" she asked, and he could sense some bitterness in that.
"Hey, we all know what a screwed up character he was," Reno replied. "Why the hell else would he walk out on such a beautiful girl?"
Tifa looked up in surprise. Did he really think that, or was that just another Reno line?
Reno shrugged.
"Who knows, maybe he's come to his senses."
"Then why hasn't he come back?"
"I don't know. Maybe he's... embarrassed or something."
The look Tifa gave him made it clear what she thought of that suggestion.
"Hey, you never know," Reno defended himself.
"Don't you think if he cared about me at all he would've contacted me in all this time?" Tifa asked. "What do you want me to do Reno, go hunt him down, fall down on my knees in front of him and beg him to come back to me, just so he can break my heart again?"
Tifa stopped and turned away again, feeling the catch in her voice at that last sentence. Reno put his glass down slowly on the table in front of him.
"I suppose not," he conceded. "But if that's the way it is, then maybe it's time you got over him, and I mean really got over him."
Tifa took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"Don't you think I've been trying?"
They fell silent, Tifa fiddling with the hem of her skirt and Reno draining his glass.
"Anyway," she said eventually, "I didn't come here to fight."
"I didn't think we were fighting," Reno answered.
"I came here to thank you," she continued. "For being so nice to both me and Karisa."
Reno looked at her for a moment then down at his empty glass. This time it was his turn to look uncomfortable.
"Yeah, well I..." he muttered.
She looked at him again.
"Are you hungry? I can make you some breakfast."
"What, is that my reward for being a 'nice guy'? You make me something to eat?"
He got a half smile from Tifa over that.
"Well, I am pretty handy around the kitchen, as you know," she replied, "and you do look like you can use a good meal."
"I'm famished, actually," he admitted, "but I'm afraid all you'll find in my refrigerator is beer and something green that's probably moving."
Tifa made a face.
"I should have known," she said. "In that case why don't we go out to have something. My treat."
Reno didn't reply for a moment. The fact was he was a bit reluctant to have a woman pay for him. That whole macho thing, but then he figured what the hell, it was no big deal, and he didn't have to remind himself that he wasn't exactly rolling in cash right now.
"Sure, why not, just let me get cleaned up a bit first."
It didn't take long for Reno to make himself look presentable. Pulling on his now dry coat, he led Tifa out the door. They walked down the street to a diner down on the corner that Reno frequented occasionally. It wasn't anyplace all that impressive, but the food was decent. The waitress inside, a short slightly overweight and very harried looking girl, led them over to a small table by the front window. Dropping menus in front of them, she told them she'd be with them in a minute and hurried off. Reno didn't see what her rush was, the place wasn't all that crowded.
They hung up their coats and sat themselves down. Tifa opened up the menu in front of her. She noticed that Reno made no motion to look at his.
"You know what you want?" she asked.
"Yeah," he replied. "Eggs and bacon. Nothing fancy."
The waitress appeared a few minutes later and asked them what they wanted. They ordered and she disappeared again as quickly as she had the first time.
Tifa put down her menu, which the waitress had neglected to collect, and looked at Reno.
"Oh, I almost forget. I found a severance pay check in your pocket that night I brought you home. Did you lose your job?"
Reno shrugged. No sense in denying it.
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry."
"Ah, it's no big deal. That place was a shithole anyway."
"So what are you going to do?"
"I don't know, I'll find something, I always do."
"Have you been looking?"
"A little. Job hunting isn't the most exciting thing in the world, you know."
"Yeah but you have to have a job," Tifa said. She couldn't see how he could have such a cavalier attitude about it. "I don't know, if I lost my job I'd be frantic."
"Well, you've got a mouth to feed besides your own," Reno pointed out.
"Yeah," Tifa said slowly. Mentioning Karisa reminded her of the child's condition.
Reno paused, seeing the look on her face and divining what she was thinking.
"Hey, don't worry about it. We'll come up with something."
She just looked at him for a moment, then shook her head.
"What?" he questioned.
She hesitated a moment before answering.
"It just seems so strange that the man who's always been so callous and cynical should be the one to say that. It's very nice of you and all but I need to face facts. I mean c'mon Reno, what do you really think you can accomplish by looking up all this stuff about Meteor Fever? Do you think you can come up with a cure all by yourself? Or anyone else for that matter? Don't you think it would be a little bit beyond belief that they will find a cure in the couple of weeks my daughter has left to live when they've been looking for years now and haven't gotten anywhere?"
The waitress interrupted them, walking over and placing their meals in front of them. Reno waited until she was gone before replying.
"Hey, you never know. Just because the odds are slim doesn't mean you should give up completely."
"So what are you saying, that miracles do happen, that something is going to save her at the last minute, that my daughter is going to be blessed and somehow survive this? Weren't you the one who's been telling me all along that life sucks, that you can't expect life to give you any breaks?"
"Now who's the one who's being cynical?"
"I'm not being cynical, I'm just being realistic. I'm not going to hold onto false hope Reno. I don't have any more hope. I'm just going to love my daughter for as long as I can and not think about what will happen after that. That's all I can do. That's the only way I can go on."
The conversation lapsed as they both concentrated on the food on the plates in front of them instead of the food for thought they've been giving each other. Reno dived in with relish, while Tifa more or less just picked at hers. There was still half the meal left on her plate by the time every crumb had been devoured from Reno's.
"You gonna eat that toast?" he questioned, pointing with his fork.
Tifa nodded for him to take it, lifting her head to look at him as she did.
"You can order something else if you're still hungry," she told him.
"No, no, this will do," he replied.
He finished up the toast. Soon after the waitress came over and gave them their check. They put their coats back on, Tifa paid, and they left.
"I'm heading over to the hospital now. Are you going to come along?" Tifa asked as they walked down the street.
Reno shrugged.
"Well, I kinda got some things to do," he said. "I still have to look for a job, you know."
She shoved her hands in her coat pockets. Looking at him, she wasn't sure if that was all there was to it.
"It's all right," she said. "Brent won't be there. He's at the office in Junon today."
"Ah, that has nothing to do with it," Reno remarked. "Maybe I'll drop by a little later though. I'll see."
Tifa just looked at him for a moment. He had a feeling she wasn't buying it.
"All right," she said. "I guess I'll see you later then."
"Yeah."
They parted ways, Reno heading back to his place, and Tifa heading for the hospital. Thinking back over the conversation, Tifa had to shake her head as she walked. She had gone to Reno's to question him as to why he acted the way he did and she realized she had never really gotten an answer. Instead he had turned it around and questioned her about her own motives. Why had she let him do that? Damn, she just wasn't as clever at manipulating a conversation as he was.
Looking back on it, she would never in a million years have thought she'd be visiting Reno's place for any reason. No matter how much she wanted to deny it, she had to admit he had changed.
No, maybe that wasn't it at all. She had a feeling this Reno had been there all along, she just hadn't seen it. Understandable, considering the front he put up. She had to admit she had never liked him, had always thought of him as a egotistical drunk womanizer. She had to admit it took some work to dig under that surface and see the real him.
Or was it the real him? Was she seeing the real thing now, or was this all just an elaborate act as well? She didn't think it was, but with Reno, well, she just couldn't tell.
There she went again, thinking the worst about him. Why did she keep doing that? He hadn't had to hold her that night she found out about Karisa, and he certainly hadn't had to visit her daughter in the hospital, or look up that stuff about Meteor Fever. That at least couldn't have been faked. He hadn't told her about it, she had just found out about it by chance. He hadn't known she'd be coming to his apartment.
No, the only conclusion she could draw was that this was something honest on his part, that this was how he really felt, no matter how much he tried to deny it. She had to admit it greatly raised her estimation of him.
And that was the problem.
Brent had been so kind to her the other day. For the first time in a long time she had been genuinely happy in his arms. She might not love him, but she did need him, especially now. Even so, she found she'd been thinking more and more of Reno lately. When she had a poor opinion of him it was easy to dismiss him, and whatever feelings she might have for him, but now, now it wasn't so easy.
She spotted a small piece of stone on the street, chipped off one of the nearby buildings, and kicked it down the sidewalk in front of her.
What was she doing? A short time ago she couldn't have conceived of Reno even being her friend, and now, what, was she thinking there was a chance of them being even more than that?
She almost had to laugh at that. Of all the people she could think of, he would be absolutely the last one she would have thought she might form a relationship with. She could just imagine what her friends from Avalanche would say if they met her again someday with Reno in tow! It was crazy enough to think of Reno as just a friend. He might not be as bad as she thought, but that didn't mean that he had changed completely. Who knew how many women he'd been in bed with? He still drank almost constantly. Did she think that was going to change? Did she think they could have a meaningful relationship given those circumstances?
She didn't know. She was right, the whole thing was insane. She didn't even know why she was thinking all this right now. She had more important things to worry about. The status of her love life was a small concern compared to what was happening with her daughter.
It took her a while to get to the hospital. It was across town, closer to her place than Reno's. She didn't do much thinking the rest of the way though. She was tired of thinking about it, and it wasn't getting her anywhere anyway.
Tifa smiled as soon as she saw Karisa. Any other concerns she might have about the world were swept away as soon as she saw her daughter. It was amazing how just the appearance of the young girl brightened her day. Karisa was her rock, the one constant in her life, the one thing she had to cling to when everything else was going to hell. She could hardly believe that her daughter might not be with her much longer.
No, not might. There was no might about it. What she had told Reno was true. It was impossible to think they could come up with a cure in the time Karisa had left. Just impossible. She had to get used to the idea that this was it, that her daughter would soon be gone.
She found herself getting all choked up again and forced those thoughts out of her mind. True as that may be it wouldn't do either of them any good to dwell on that. She had to concentrate on making this as happy a time as she could for the both of them for as long as was possible.
Yet even that was a chore. She sat and talked with her daughter the entire afternoon and into the early evening. It seemed a cruel twist of fate that she had to spend this last time she had with her daughter not being able to even touch her, with this barrier between them. She couldn't play interactively with Karisa, couldn't hold her in her arms as she so desperately longed to. With the plastic between them it was only their voices that seemed in contact. Talking to her daughter was all she could do, and she hated it.
It was getting late when Reno showed up. By that time she had pretty much given up on him coming at all. She saw him enter the room, then stride over toward her purposefully, holding what looked like a yellow folder in his hand.
"I didn't think you were going to make it," she said as he came up beside her.
"I need you to do me a favor," Reno said.
That took Tifa a bit by surprise.
"What do you want me to do?" she questioned.
"I need you to get the nurse over here and keep her distracted for about five minutes."
Tifa gave him a puzzled look.
"What for?"
"I need to get into the hospital computer."
Tifa folded her arms in front of her.
"Why?"
"I'll explain it all when I'm done. Just trust me on this okay? It's important."
Tifa hesitated a moment more. Her suspicions aroused, she ran through in her mind any reasons she could think of why he would make such a request and pretty much came up blank.
There didn't seem much else she could do at this point but go along.
"All right," she said. She paused for a moment, running over in her mind just how she could achieve this.
"Excuse me."
The nurse looked up at that, and, seeing Tifa looking at her, came over.
"She seems a little better today," Tifa said, motioning toward her daughter, and making sure she was standing so that when the nurse faced her, she was facing away from the nurses station. "Is that possible?"
Reno discreetly took a few steps back until he was behind the nurse, then walked rapidly over to the nursing station.
"A lot of patients show some improvement in the first or second weeks during the course of the disease," the nurse told her, "but it's usually only temporary."
"What exactly are they doing to treat it?"
"Well, there is no real treatment, none that can cure her. Most of the treatment we give is more preventive or symptomatic in nature."
"What kind of medications are they giving her?"
Tifa went on for quite a bit, asking whatever questions popped into her head that seemed reasonable, until she got a signal from Reno that he was done.
"Okay, thank you very much for the information," she told the nurse.
Reno walked up beside her just as the nurse turned away to walk back to her station.
"So, what was that all about?" Tifa questioned.
"C'mon, let's go downstairs and get a cup of coffee and I'll fill you in."
Tifa was a bit piqued to be put off yet again, but she followed Reno as he led her back downstairs. Tifa's tea took a few moments longer to prepare than Reno's coffee, so he was already seated when she sat down at the table.
"Are you going to tell me what this is all about now?" she questioned.
Reno opened the folder he had brought along with him and pushed what was obviously a print out of a picture in front of her. A cursory glance revealed it was a picture of a hospital ward, not unlike the one where Karisa was.
"This is a picture taken of some kids who had meteor fever three years ago, not long after the outbreak was discovered," Reno told her. He pointed to one of the children in the picture. "Does this kid look familiar?"
It was a small boy, perhaps five of six years old. She stared at the picture, wondering what Reno could possibly be asking her this. She didn't know any kids that age.
"I don't..." she began. She stopped, looking at the picture more closely. After a moment she spoke again. "I don't know, he looks a little like Brent."
"I think there's a good reason for that," Reno replied, taking another picture out of the folder. This one was just of a single boy, and looked to be a picture taken by one of those school photographers. Brent had showed Tifa a picture of both his children a long time ago, shortly after they met, but she had never met them in person. Even so she recognized this new picture immediately as Brent's son. "I think it is him. I got this picture when I was checking up on Brent. This pic was taken a year ago, but even so, don't you think it looks like the same kid."
"Jonathan?" Tifa questioned dubiously, looking at both pictures. The one in the ward wasn't all that clear, the child wasn't that close to the camera and it was a little grainy, yet still she could see the resemblance. "That doesn't make any sense."
"You sure?" Reno questioned.
"Of course I'm sure," Tifa replied. "Reno, the kids in this picture have meteor fever. It was taken three years ago. All the children in this picture would be dead by now."
"Exactly," Reno said.
Tifa just stared at him.
"What are you saying, that this is Brent's son? How do you know it's not just someone who resembles him?"
"That was my first thought," Reno agreed. 'That's why I wanted to access the hospital computer. Guess what? It just so happens that Brent's son was admitted to the hospital two days before this picture was taken but you know what the funny thing is?"
"No, what?" Tifa asked slowly.
"There's no record of him receiving any type of treatment at all. Don't you think that's kind of odd?"
Tifa just sat there looking at Reno for a long time, not sure what to think. Could this possibly be? She knew for a fact that Brent's son was alive. He'd mentioned both his son and his daughter more than once to her. It didn't make sense that his kid would be in a meteor fever ward three years ago. The disease had a one hundred percent fatality rate. No one survived it.
And yet, the kid did look like Jonathan. And why would they have a record of Brent's son being admitted to the hospital two days before the picture was taken, and no record of any treatment? Perhaps it was all some strange coincidence but those facts were certainly more than enough to arouse her suspicions.
"I don't understand," she said. "What does this mean?"
"I don't know either," Reno replied. "And I think there's only one person who can explain it. Perhaps it's time that your friend Brent and I sat down and had a nice little heart to heart talk."
Tifa remained silent for a long time, her mind filled with conflicting thoughts, yet one thing cried out to be recognized. If this really was Jonathan, if he really did have meteor fever three years ago, and he was alive now, then that meant...
What? That it wasn't always fatal? That maybe, just maybe, Karisa could survive this somehow? That maybe there was some hope? Could it be possible? Could she even let herself think that? After these last few days with no hope, was is possible that maybe her daughters death was not inevitable? She was afraid to even consider that right now. She wasn't ready to give herself any false hope. Reno was right, someone had to talk to Brent about this, someone had to find out the truth.
"No," she said finally. "I'll talk to him."
Reno frowned.
"I'm not really sure that's the best..."
"He's my boyfriend, it's my child," she pointed out. "It should be me."
Reno hesitated. The truth was he wasn't all that sure that Tifa had what it took to do this. True, he was her boyfriend, but that was actually a strike against her. She had an emotional attachment to him. Besides, he knew her nature. He wasn't sure if she was prepared to do what needed to be done to convince someone to tell the truth when they might have every reason to conceal it. That kind of persuasion was much more down his alley than hers.
Nevertheless, he could see by the look in her eye that she wasn't going to take no for an answer on this one.
"All right," he relented. "When?"
"I'll see him tomorrow," she said. "I'll... I'll ask him to come home with me so we can have dinner together. He's not one to turn down a good home cooked meal."
He looked her over for a moment, but the look in her eye didn't change.
"All right then," he agreed. "Tomorrow it is."