Sector 5 Church, Midgar, Gaia, Friday Late Night

[intraspective]

This time of night all the good boys and girls were in bed.

At least, they usually were in the stories. Ino knew far, far too much about how Midgar (and life in general) worked to think that being up late was any real indicator of good or badness.

She didn't have to be out tonight, patrolling, and she wasn't officially on the clock anyway (not that that meant much) but she'd been away for the last few weeks, out in Wutai since it was easy for her to pass as a native there, and so she wanted to reacquaint herself with her home.

Midgar was an ugly city, all dark metal, rust, and green smoke skies. She still thought it was beautiful, when she saw the flicker and glitter of mako lit streetlights and the old empty-eyed fallen trains. Beautiful in a lonely sort of way, which suited her mood completely.

There'd been no time, out in Wutai to celebrate her birthday (she was twenty-two now), and while the Turks had offered to take her out tonight, none of them had been surprised when she'd begged off. They could go drinking without her.

As she usually did, when she was in this sort of mood, her footsteps ghosted her to Aerith's church. This time of night, Aerith wasn't there. Aerith was (mostly) a good girl.

Letting the door slip shut behind her, Ino approached the flowers, somehow lit by the moon despite the plate overhead (she knew, she'd gone looking once and it still didn't make sense), and knelt down to touch them.

"Hey," she said, smiling slightly as her hair spilled over her shoulders to touch the flowers too. "How've you been? Being good for your mom?"

[OOC: Expecting one, but open for calls/texts, sure.]

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[intraspective]

How odd she must look, if anyone were to wander in here, a Turk with pale hair that reflected moonlight, talking to the flowers like they could talk back to her.

But Ino's shields were down and she was quite alone. There was a drunk three streets over staggering home. There were few kids, a couple of blocks away, gambling with their few, precious gil. There were so, so many people settling down for the night.

But there was precious little going on around her, in the quiet bubble of silence that the church always seemed to hold.

"I always do," she said to the flowers, because admitting she was talking to anything, or anyone more, led to... she wasn't thinking about it. "You know that. I always look out for what's mine."

To the best of her ability. She hadn't been so good at it in one case but, so far, she'd managed for everyone else.

[puppy_fair]

You do, Zack agreed, and he tried so, so hard to keep a pang out of that thought, but somewhere deep down, there was a touch of melancholy. Even when he'd decided that he was going to think pleasant thoughts. Some things were difficult to let go of completely. You protect your own in any way you can.

Sometimes... sometimes, she just didn't know to be there.

He barely had the strength to, but he managed, at least, to wrap his arms around himself. It was cold in here tonight.

[intraspective]

She shivered, then shook her head. It wasn't cold in Midgar. Just October and, while it wasn't warm, it was a pretty normal autumn and she was dressed in a suit.

But part of her was still cold. Maybe it was the way her thoughts were going, darker than she'd wanted.

(Not darker than she'd expected, though, honestly. There'd been many reasons she'd wanted to be alone tonight.)

"I'm not great at it," she admitted to the flowers. "Failed the most important test."

Which still burned, years later.

[puppy_fair]

And colder still. The fluid that Hojo had Zack suspended in clearly had some sort of chill to it, tonight.

It... was night, right? There were no windows to speak of down here, there was no way of knowing. But sometimes, in moments like this, he almost felt that he could be sure.

You would have tried, though. If you'd known. Right?

[intraspective]

"Always," she said, and stood, being careful not to take any of the flowers with her. They didn't deserve to die because she was in a mood tonight.

Even if she couldn't decide what that mood was.

"I always try. Always. Even if I have no plan, no chance."

It was one of those traits that was one day going to make Tseng turn gray. Just like Rosa's inability to stay on the line when he said something she didn't like.

[puppy_fair]

I know.

He loved her for it, after all. Zack was silent (more silent, anyway) for a moment or two, and then venture, I don't get to talk to you often enough.

He didn't get to talk to anybody often enough, granted. But that one seemed like it deserved a mention regardless.

[intraspective]

Ino was quiet.

There was a tightrope in her mind that she had to walk carefully because--because she'd fallen off of it before, when it came to this sort of thing, and it was ugly, she was ugly when it happened.

Aerith could talk to the dead. Could hear their spirits as they passed to the Lifestream.

She'd never heard Zack.

But... but Ino di--

"This is kind of lame," she admitted, flopping down on one of the pews. "Empty church, bunch of flowers for company. I could be celebrating my birthday, you know? But I didn't much feel like it. It ain't been my thing for a while."

Since he'd left.

[puppy_fair]

Birthday? I missed that?

He frowned, there in his mind, and realized that he had no idea how many of those he had missed by now.

You're... twenty, now?

It was a swing and a miss, he was sure. But the passage of time wasn't something easily kept track of. Not down here. He'd lost so much of it. Too much of it.

[intraspective]

"Not me," she said, slouching a little. "Twenty-two. Finally legal for everything back where we met. Not that it matters here. Gaia don't sweat that sort of thing much."

[puppy_fair]

Twenty-two, Zack echoed. That meant he had missed... too many years. For the life of him, he had no idea why he could daydream up something like that. This was a quiet night.

It was a quiet night. And now he was torturing himself.

Clearly, he was bad at taking advantage of the reprieve.

It's been too long. I lose track, not even sometimes. Time doesn't mean much anymore, I guess.

Except that Ino's life was slipping by, and he wasn't even a part of it.

[intraspective]

Even dead, though, he couldn't leave her alone. And she couldn't let him go.

Who wasn't part of whose life again?

"Not really," she agreed. "All those big numbers and stuff that mattered, well, they don't seem to matter no more."

It was pretty sad, really, but Ino was better than she'd been, back when it had been new pain.

"Still here, though," she said. "Pretty surprised."

By her living or by his staying around? How about both? It would have been easier if she hadn't had both.

[puppy_fair]

I've always been constantly surprised by you, Zack offered, some warmth in his tone that didn't quite make up for how cold his body felt, tonight. I'm glad you're still here. Who would I talk to, if you weren't?

It would be lonely in here, making up conversations in his head with nobody in particular.

[intraspective]

"That's right," she said playfully, "that's why I need to stick around. For--"

For conversations with dead people. Ino couldn't say that.

"You probably don't know," she said, "but Tseng and I got married."

[puppy_fair]

Well, that struck Zack like a fist to the guts, right there. He actually twisted a little with the impact of it, loosed a mute whimper that was lost in bubbles and mako and the silence of the night.

... Was it a nice wedding?

He didn't know what else to say, to that.

[intraspective]

"Oh, it was terrible."

Then, because Ino couldn't be cruel to this voice in her heart, she added, truthfully, "Not real married. It was for a job."

[puppy_fair]

Oh thank Ifrit.

... Really, Zack?

I mean... I want you to be happy. I really, really do. And if you find somebody who...

Wow, this was hard.

... Who MAKES you happy...

Really, really hard.

But, you know. TSENG.

That part was easier.

[intraspective]

Ino burst out laughing, her first real laugh in... a while.

"He was a perfectly acceptable husband," she said loftily. "Though not for me."

[puppy_fair]

That laugh was so good to hear. It hurt. He yearned to hear it with his own ears, to see the smile on her face. He ached to hold her again. But to hear her laugh, even in his head, even in his imagination, was closer than he'd been in so, so long.

I hope not. He's so... so Tseng.

[intraspective]

"Ain't nothing wrong with being Tseng," Ino said, tilting her head back to look into the rafters of the church. If she pretended hard enough, maybe she'd see starlight.

"But ain't much my type. And I weren't his either. The wife he ordered me to be were more like someone else."

Ino was judging Tseng pretty hard for that, but it was funny here and now.

[puppy_fair]

Somebody else? Oh?

Zack could spot a crush at fifty paces, apparently unless it involved Tseng's feelings for Aerith.

[intraspective]

Which was... well, Zack always did have an odd blind spot there.

"Well," Ino said, "her hair's darker than mine, and she's got green eyes, and she likes flowers..."

[puppy_fair]

Aerith? Tseng likes AERITH? I had no idea!

... Seriously, Zack. Seriously. You found a freaking camera with his name on it outside the church, once.

...

Which was actually really creepy.

[intraspective]

Or it was part of the job. All of the Turks were pretty creepy, even Ino.

She laughed again, that bright, silvery laugh that only rarely came out. "But it's so obvious!"

[puppy_fair]

Well, nobody told me!

HONESTLY, ZACK.

Why doesn't he just ask her out, then? Just one date!

Because he clearly hadn't been to the Zack Fair School of Romance.

[intraspective]

To salvage Tseng's reputation with a ghost or not...

"I think he's shy," Ino said helpfully.

She was pretty sure it had to do more with Aerith not being interested and the fact that the Turks could not be, officially, Aerith's friends. She was a job.

Or, well, she was meant to be.