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She shouldn’t be here.
That’s the fear that claws at her throat as she walks through the darkened reception. The air is sharp, clinical. It smells like disinfectant. It tastes like death.
A figure waits for her in the shadows, his sharp face illuminated by the aqua glow from the vending machine. She almost laughs. Not because the scene is funny—it almost is—but because nerves are getting the better of her. Her hands are shaking and he’s looking at her like she’s shit on the bottom of his shoe. He’s pulled some strings, she knows. She should be grateful. That doesn’t mean she has to like the bastard.
“Miss Lockhart.” Tseng’s voice is cool, as always. That’s the only pleasantries she’s getting, apart from an economical tilt of his head. “There’s no change. The prognosis is poor.”
She doesn’t trust herself to speak.
“I doubt I have to point out that you shouldn’t be here,” he continues. She’s an inconvenience, she knows. She’s the reason they’re all here, in more ways than one.
Her mouth is dry. She nods.
“Very well,” he says.
He heads through a set of double doors and doesn’t hold them open for her. She follows him, unable to shake the feeling she’s still being watched. There are cameras in every corner and she feels them honing in. Tseng has never liked her, but this is different. Before, she was a thorn in his side. A distraction. Now? He’s never shown such apathy towards her. He’s angry. Angry at her. Angry at the situation.
Tifa doesn’t blame him, she’s angry too.
She has to jog to keep up with him. He walks with a purpose, shiny shoes ringing out on the linoleum. This is a Shinra hospital, for Shinra employees. She has no place here. The moonlight that streams through the long windows highlights his hair and the slim cut of the suit he wears.
The suit… She can barely stand to look at it.
He leads her up a narrow stairwell. There’s no further attempt at conversation. They head deeper into the deserted hospital and she can only wonder just how many strings he’s had to pull. She hasn’t seen another person since she walked through the door. They’re taking the whole classified thing a little too far. When he stops in front of room 204, she notices the tension leave his shoulders, as though he’s resigning himself to what’s on the other side of the wall. When he turns to look at her, there’s the tiniest spark of compassion in his dark eyes.
“You should prepare yourself,” he says simply. With that, he opens the door.
There are flowers on the table, yellow lilies in a simple vase. It’s funny that the blooms are the first thing she notices. He’d have shrugged them off, told her not to be so dumb. The bright yellow petals are one of only two spots of colour in the grey room. The other is crimson. She edges towards the bed and barely notices the door click shut behind her. When she inhales, her chest constricts painfully. She blinks away the heat in her eyes.
He’s sleeping. They’ve done their best to treat his injuries, but even the mighty Shinra can’t work miracles. Gauze covers half his face. Beneath it, she knows his right eye is unsalvageable, and with the slick wound covered, she can at least pretend she recognises the angles of his face. She reaches out and almost touches the slim red tattoo that cuts across his left cheekbone. Her fingers are trembling and she stares at them. They don’t belong to her. They can’t.
They’ve bandaged his arms too. The dressings match the ones she wears, the flesh beneath them singed and bloody. Tifa doesn’t feel the pain anymore, not with the restoratives she’s popping like candy. The sting is nothing compared to the hollow ache in her chest. She hopes he doesn’t feel any pain. He looks peaceful, so perhaps he doesn’t. A shudder passes through her. She tries to bite down the sob. If Reno hears her, he doesn’t react, just lies there on the bed. She doesn’t know what’s expected of her, or how long she even has. She wasn’t prepared for this situation. Not then, not now, not ever.
She sits on the edge of the mattress and holds his hand. It’s warm, and that breaks her. She crawls into his arms and presses her cheek to his bare chest, straining to hear the heartbeat that flutters beneath her ear. He’d wrap his arms around her and kiss her hair, tell her to stop being so fucking sentimental. She can almost hear his voice.
Reno doesn’t speak, though. He doesn’t kiss her hair. He doesn’t hold her in his arms.
Tifa closes her eyes.
The light is too bright. She throws her hand up in front of her face.
When the glow fades he’s standing just ahead of her, dressed in his suit, trademark grin plastered on his face. He quirks an eyebrow. “And here was me thinking I’d been stood up.”
She stares. It’s all she can do. Her knees buckle.
As always, he’s fast on his feet. He catches her before she hits the ground. “I mean… you’re taking the whole falling for me thing a little too far now, babe.”
Tifa can’t speak. She wraps her arms around his waist so tightly he exhales in surprise. When she presses her face to his chest, she can feel the heat of his skin through his shirt. His heart beats steadily below her ear and she counts every single one.
“Hey…” He strokes her hair, her neck, her jaw. “I’m not going anywhere.”
As the shock subsides, the panic sets in. She’s been here before.
“Reno… this is…” She loosens her grip and shoves him. He staggers backwards. “Don’t you dare… don’t you dare do this to me!”
Fists against his ribcage punctuate her words. To his credit, he stands and takes it. When she finally slows, chest heaving, he catches her wrists in his hands. “You done?”
“This is the Lifestream.” Tifa's words are barely audible, a whisper on the wind.
“Eh… close enough.” He shrugs, rubbing his thumbs over the bones of her wrists. “It’s more of a… pit-stop.”
He chooses his words with an unusual amount of care. Tifa peers up at him. “Don’t lie to me.”
“Would I?”
Exhaustion creeps over her. She can feel it in her bones.
“Now I’m going to let go.” He kisses her knuckles. “But if you punch me again, you’re in big fucking trouble.”
Her lip twitches. She doesn’t know whether she wants to laugh or cry.
“You know what’s really cool?” He sits down. There’s a sofa behind him she swears wasn’t there a moment before. He clicks his fingers. “Anything I want. Anything at all.”
“Anything?”
“Brought you here, didn’t I?” His eyes soften. He pats the black leather beside him. “Take a load off.”
He sprawls on the sofa, long legs kicked out in front of him. He’s lost his jacket now, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and the look he gives her is the same cocky smirk he’s given her a thousand times before.
“Well? What does a guy have to do to get a kiss around here?”
She can’t. She stares at him, tears blurring her eyes.
“Tifa… You’re doing that thing you do.” He rests an arm across the back of the sofa, drumming his fingers lazily. “Stop thinking.”
She inhales. Her whole body is shaking.
“We’ve talked about this before.” His eyes are liquid now. The tip of his tongue wets his lips. “If I have to play dirty, I will.”
He holds his other hand out and beckons her closer.
She already knows his game. He swipes her legs out from under her with a well-practised kick and she lands in his lap. Reno wraps his arms around her and plants a kiss on her collarbone that’s all wet heat and teeth. She squirms against him.
“Reno!”
He laughs into the crook of her neck, holding her a little tighter. If she doesn’t focus too hard on the white expanse around them, this could almost be any other evening back in his apartment, cradled in his arms watching stupid movies and drinking beer.
It’s not, though. It never will be.
His hair tickles her chin. She flinches, and this time the sound that escapes her lips is a giggle. When he catches her eye, his grin is absolutely shit-eating.
“Now," he says. “About that kiss.”
He settles back against the cushions, and she makes herself comfortable. It’s not that difficult to find her place. She fits against him perfectly, like a missing puzzle piece. The tension drains out of her frame and all she feels is warmth. When his mouth hovers over hers, there’s mischief in his eyes. He rubs his nose against her cheek and his breath is hot and damp. “Do you remember the first time we did this?”
Tifa fists her hands in his shirt. “This?”
He kisses the corner of her mouth. “The first time you kissed me?”
“I kissed you?”
He hums in agreement. “Obviously. How could you resist?”
“You were drunk.” When she speaks, her lips brush against his cheek. “You kissed me and I punched you.”
He laughs. “Okay… not that time. The second time we kissed.”
It was a bad day. Every tiny little thing that could’ve gone wrong did. The bulb in the bathroom blew, the oven broke, her car got a flat tire… The kids were fighting like cats and dogs, and she’d argued with Barret about the room upstairs she kept just so, clinging to the notion one day her little family would be complete again. By the time Reno sauntered through Seventh Heaven’s door, thirty minutes before closing, she’d been ready to throw in the towel. Instead of starting their usual tit-for-tat, he sat at the end of the bar and behaved himself. When she rang for last orders, he bought two bottles of beer, sat her down and offered her a shoulder to cry on.
He cracked a joke. She was laughing, and suddenly they were a lot closer than she remembered them being. She'd closed the distance between them before she could talk herself out of it.
“You were a cranky bitch that day,” he says, kissing the corner of her mouth again. This time, the pressure is a little more insistent. “You’re lucky you’ve got such a great rack.”
“Asshole.”
“Be nice,” he quips. “You got that filthy mouth from me.”
He’s right.
He bumps his nose against hers again, tilts her mouth towards him. “I’ll never get tired of this.”
When he finally kisses her, it’s soft. Sweet. She melts into his arms, and the tears roll down her cheeks.
“Hey,” he grumbles. “You’re not supposed to cry.”
She sniffs.
He pecks her cheek. “I’m doing some of my best work here.”
“I’m sorry.” The word encompasses a lot of things. She doesn’t know where to start. The ache in her chest is unbearable. The words tumble out of her mouth. “I love you.”
“Don’t start.” He’s grinning again. He looks younger somehow. “If I’d known you were gonna get all sentimental and shit—”
“Reno…”
“What?”
Her voice breaks. “Don’t leave me.”
He sighs and pulls her a little closer. “I’m not going anywhere. Not yet.”
“Not ever.”
He smiles, but it doesn’t hit his eyes. “I remember the first time you told me that.” His voice is quiet. “We were on the beach in Wutai.”
She presses her index to his mouth, tries to halt his words. She can’t do this. Not today.
He nips her finger affectionately and kisses her fingertip. “That’s a good one. People say they’ll remember shit, but they don’t. The human brain ain’t wired up like that. But I’ll always remember that one.”
Please...
“You wore that dress I like…” He brushes a calloused thumb across her cheek. Her skin is wet. “I don’t know how I kept my hands off you as long as I did.”
She laughs, but it’s a wet sound. Sad. It catches in her throat. “You didn’t.”
“Hmm. I didn’t,” he agrees. “Don’t remember hearing you complain… Fucking sand gets everywhere.”
He kisses her again, and this time his mouth is firmer. There’s heat, urgency. It pools within her, spreading warmth from her fingers right the way to her toes. This is it, she thinks. This is the last time. So she feels out the angles of his jaw, his eyes, his nose, curls her fingers through his hair. Commits it all to memory. How he feels. How he tastes.
Him.
“You carry on kissing me like that,” he says, capturing her mouth again. “And I’ll fuck you right here on this sofa. And I don’t think that’s allowed.”
Tifa wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him again. She doesn’t know how long they stay like that. He holds her in his arms and cracks jokes, tells stories, yawns sleepily in her ear. His mouth is never far away, and he surprises her midway through sentences and makes her toes curl. By the time the stories run out, her eyes are drifting shut.
It’s warm, she thinks. Just a little while longer.
“You’re going to have to leave soon,” he whispers, lips brushing her ear. “But don’t worry. I’ll be right behind you.”
She presses her nose to his chest and squeezes her eyes shut.
“Babe?” He kisses her temple. His lips are rough against her skin. “You know I love you too, right?”
When the door clicks open, he isn’t alone. The others stand behind him. Their faces are tired and drawn.
Tifa sits up. This time there isn’t anger in Tseng’s expression. There’s something else, something far worse. Elena’s eyes are red. When Tseng speaks, she can’t understand the words. They come at her from a long way away.
“Tifa?”
She stares at him. Her heart breaks.
“It’s time to say goodbye.”