Room 504, Saturday Afternoon

[intraspective]

Being back in Fandom was a peculiar… sort of disconnect.

Ino was curled up on hers and Zack’s pushed together beds and pretending to read. Which was rather futile because she knew it was pretence and so it would have been more productive to actually do something…

But she didn’t really feel like it. There were a lot of things she had to think on, but those thoughts felt almost like she was clinging to broken glass in her hands, and that hurt.

Like a toothache, however, she couldn’t quite stop poking at them. Even when doing so only hurt things more.

And, turn the page. Keeping up appearances, even just to herself, was important.

She was supposed to be reading. Would claim to be reading.

But her gaze wasn't on the book.

[Open door and post!]

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[intraspective]

Her phone was ringing! That meant... that meant she could stop pretending to read and actually do something that wasn't brooding, right?

As Silly came bumbling over to see what the noise was, Ino picked her phone up.

"Hello?"

[withoutverona]

"It's Romeo," Romeo answered, trying to figure out where to start from.

'Reno thought I should check up on you' seemed like a bad place.

"Just ... wanted to call. It's been a while, and I wanted to let you know I hadn't dropped off the face of the Earth."

[intraspective]

She smiled slightly, rearranging herself on the bed, so that she was comfy, and tried to remember the last time she'd talked to him.

"I appreciate it," she said, wriggling her fingers for her chicobo. "I've told you before, yeah, that I suck at keeping in touch...? Sorry. I should've called."

[withoutverona]

"Phones work both ways, the last I heard," Romeo answered. "The important thing is, we're talking now. I was on the island last weekend, but I didn't spend much time just visiting..."

[intraspective]

"If you looked for me, I wasn't around," she admitted. "I didn't get back 'till right before the picnic for the new kids."

[withoutverona]

"What did you do instead?" Romeo asked. "I should admit -- Reno mentioned you'd not had the easiest time of it, lately."

[intraspective]

Ino cringed and was glad that Romeo couldn't see her reaction.

"Reno's right," she said, a bit clipped in saying his name. "Zack and I were--exploring Gaia."

There. Pure truth. No one, not even herself, could say she was lying.

(Not telling the whole story, on the other hand...)

[withoutverona]

"I've only been there once," Romeo reported. "It -- wasn't for me. But I was told what we saw wasn't all of it, or the best of it."

[intraspective]

"There's... not a whole lot that's best," she said, her voice carefully controlled. "It's not a very happy world, Reno's."

[withoutverona]

"And Zack's, isn't it?" Romeo asked. "I wasn't prepared. Verona is -- there are horrible things, but there's so much beauty. It's not the same at all. Gaia made me feel small and useless."

And terribly, terribly guilty that he couldn't magically fix it.

[intraspective]

"Zack's is... different," she said, smiling a bit more. "Gaia is still beautiful there, even Midgar, though that's a different sort of beautiful."

A more imposing sort, staring at a city that was running out of time and didn't know it.

[withoutverona]

"I hadn't known that," Romeo said. "Was that the one you were in? Zack's?"

[intraspective]

"We ended up there," she admitted, "but no, we were... in Reno's. Reno weren't too impressed, I don't think."

[withoutverona]

"I can see him not being too excited about surprise guests," Romeo said dryly. "It seemed to me like he left there for a reason."

[intraspective]

"He knew we were coming," she defended herself quickly. "The Turks were--moving their base to Junon, a city not too far from Midgar, but that's in better repair. It was more we were... lookin' around, without him to herd us out of the bad areas."

Like the church where they'd found Zack's sword. His memorial.

[withoutverona]

"Which sounds like a way to help trouble find you," Romeo said, distinctly concerned. Ino and Zack were strong, of course, but...

[intraspective]

"Nothin' that attacked us could take us out there," she said, truthfully. "Zack and I were able to deal with any monsters easily."

[withoutverona]

"So Reno was just being overprotective?" Romeo asked. "Him and his rookies..."

[intraspective]

She should lie. Ino knew she should lie, but the words bubbled out of her before she could stop them.

"No," she said softly. "He weren't bein' over-protective. We found some pretty... hurtful... things."

[withoutverona]

Right. And this was what Reno had been hinting at.

"Did you want to talk?" he asked softly. "Or should I go on about ... what I'm reading, or how we want to go to New York, or anything else in the world? I can do either. I tend to dwell but I'm of the mind of late that it does me no good."

[intraspective]

"It's complicated," she said, not directly answering his question. "I... I think I should be angry? At Reno? But I just want to--cry, instead, I think. And then I feel guilty because there was... so much horror and yet I keep tripping on only one detail in particular and that's... not right."

[withoutverona]

"Why?" Romeo asked, after a pause that stretched to infinity. "You can't change any of it, so ... why not feel what you feel?"

[intraspective]

"Because... Because other things that happened, those were big and awful and some of them affected me directly but, not like this one thing. Isn't that--selfish?"

She didn't know. She just sounded tired.

[withoutverona]

"God would forgive you if it was," Romeo answered, frowning. "Did someone get hurt? Someone you know, I mean?"

[intraspective]

"Did I tell you that Reno was always against me and Zack?" she asked, her voice tiny. "And how he's given up but he still ain't a fan? I... I--he didn't want me to get hurt."

Ino blinked. Hard.

"I'm going to, if I can't change the future."