Apartment Above the Boards, Sunday Morning

[intraspective]

There'd been a lot to think about from yesterday. Almost too much, really, which was why when Zack had suggested they all hit Luke's for breakfast (a family breakfast) Ino had plead work and promised she'd be along in a few.

And she would. Be along, that was.

But what she had to do didn't have anything to do with work.

She sat cross-legged on her bed, Silly perched on her knee, and Kueng's Silly perched on her other knee, and Girl dosing behind her. (Ino was pretty bemused by the duplicate of her chicobo.) They were eyeing each other. Ino gently rubbed both of their heads and then sent off the message she'd realized last night that she should have sent earlier.

Kueng's safe.

Because with his fathers' only the gods knew just how badly they were taking his disappearance.

[For those she's messaging, but also open for calls/visitors, yo.]

Comments

[turk_mailman]

Tseng nodded, brief and firm and maybe a little more robotic than he meant to.

"Tell me, Iris," he said, "at the point in your timeline that you're in now, what's the current status of former SOLDIER, Sephiroth?"

Had Nibelheim happened?

Did they all still believe, so very, very incorrectly, that JENOVA's offspring was dead?

[intraspective]

She blinked at him, genuinely startled. Of all the things that she'd expected him to bring up--that wasn't one of them.

"As far as all reports show, he's been dead nearly six years," she said, the words coming out a bit hesitant. "Right now, there's a resurgence of Ravens, a secondary AVALANCHE and rumors of Genesis copies, though credible sightings are few and far between."

[turk_mailman]

Tseng took a moment to run that through his head, through the timeline, before nodding.

"Sephiroth isn't dead."

That was the first, most important point that needed to be made.

"Sephiroth is never quite as gone as we would like to hope."

Even years later, after Zack and the Turks had taken him down, after so many of them had died trying. So long as there was a lifestream, there was Sephiroth, lurking within it, polluting the Planet entire.

[intraspective]

Ino's mouth opened.

Then closed.

"Are you saying--?"

She couldn't finish that sentence.

Well. It was... wow. It was no wonder she'd died if that was the cause. Ino was good but not that good. She was never going to be that good.

[turk_mailman]

"Out of nowhere, protecting the President," Tseng confirmed. "You and Reno, at first. And then again, over and over. We lost many good Turks to him before Zack managed to put him down."

Apparently there were consequences to removing Cloud from the picture.

[intraspective]

Yes, but--there'd been no way to save Zack without removing Cloud from the picture as well.

The enormity of it was something she couldn't quite wrap her mind around.

"Many?" she echoed. "Rosa...?"

Ino swallowed.

"I don't want to know," except she did, desperately, "I mean, unless it will... help."

[turk_mailman]

"It won't," Tseng replied, and left it at that. She didn't want to know. He didn't want to talk about them. About how they'd been torn apart, attack after attack.

For the job.

"It's... important to make it safe for Zack to return to Midgar," he noted. "Our world doesn't have people who can begin to compare with Sephiroth. Fewer, without him."

[intraspective]

That was what Turks did. Ino felt fiercely proud of all of them.

"The President is the greatest roadblock towards that," she said, a bit doubtfully. "And Zack... Zack ain't too inclined towards Shinra these days. Though he likes the wee one we've got on the island well enough."

[turk_mailman]

"It never was like him to hold something against a child just because of what the parents had done," Tseng agreed. "I know there are challenges, but he--"

That was about the time the door opened behind him.

"Tseng? I don't mean to interrupt, but did you get a number for where Hueng is at, at least? My calls aren't going--"

Zack froze mid-sentence. He just stood there in silence, eye on the screen.

[intraspective]

Oh. Oh.

If Tseng had aged well--and he had--then Zack... Ino was not prepared for Zack. Not even a little.

"Hi Zack," she said, very softly. "Kueng's with me this weekend."

[turk_mailman]

Zack was silent, just staring at her with the one eye he had left, the rest of his scarred face frozen in shock.

In pain.

Tseng frowned. He couldn't explain this. Couldn't excuse not telling Zack what he was doing. He knew that. Zack knew that. Everybody here knew that.

"He can't do this alone," he said, quietly. "Neither can you."

That was what he had. That was all he had.

[intraspective]

She was glad, in some way, that the argument they'd have after the call wouldn't have her physically in the middle of it. Only emotionally, and she wouldn't have to know.

Wouldn't have to watch them bleed emotionally.

Ino pried her gaze away from Zack's.

"Neither can you," she pointed out. Her hands, though, were busy sending a text, where they wouldn't be able to see what she was sending. "Though I know you'd try."

She didn't know if Tseng would dare touch his phone right then, but the text she sent him was simple and direct: Send me what I need to know.

[turk_mailman]

Tseng wouldn't dare. Not until after this call. Not until after the argument he knew was to come.

He simply nodded in reply to her statement. He would try. He had tried. He had his fair share of scars as well, though by some miracle he'd survived the years. Which was good. Kueng didn't need to lose another parent.

"Trying is all the recourse we have left," he said, simply. "It isn't in our nature to give up."

[intraspective]

That was fine. Her text wouldn't disappear.

She couldn't help but laugh, short but happy. She was worried and scared and upset at the way they looked at her, but she was also alive and well and had the ability to make things different.

It was okay, she thought, for her to laugh.

And maybe they needed to hear it too. "None of us know how to do that!"

[turk_mailman]

Zack finally shifted his weight a little, looking between Tseng and Ino - Ino - before finally, finally speaking.

"Maybe it wouldn't hurt for us to learn, though."

Tseng's expression darkened slightly.

"Perhaps I ought to let you go," he said, picking his words carefully. "I'm certain Kueng is wondering where you've gone."

That seemed to make Zack relax faintly, at least.

[intraspective]

"Hang on," she said, glancing at Tseng, then at where Zack had been. When she spoke, she spoke fiercely. "Zack, no, I don't think so. Givin' up ain't never the answer. I thought that back when everythin' started and maybe I ain't knowing what happened to me here, but I bet your me didn't ever give up either. Even when dying."

Silly, both Sillys, beeped at that.

"So I won't ever. I don't know what led to the future where Kueng and you both lost me. But knowin' that it happens, I ain't just going to walk back and let it happen."

[turk_mailman]

Tseng pulled in a deep breath and then, slowly, he exhaled.

Zack just stood there in silence, staring at the screen. And then, without a word, he nodded. He couldn't open his mouth to reply. He'd gotten very good, over the years, at not letting it just blatantly show when he was feeling gutted, but when that gutting came from a ghost...

"Don't you dare die again."

And then, before that thin veneer of 'vaguely okay' broke completely, he turned and left the room, leaving Tseng sitting there, reaching a hand and pressing his fingers to his temples.

This was going to be one hell of a day.

[intraspective]

"I weren't planning to," Ino muttered, feeling both awful and satisfied at having told Zack all of that.

Giving up weren't ever an option. She hated that there was a him that would even consider it.

Ino pulled her shoulders in, defensively, and said to Tseng, "I ain't sorry I said that to him," she said, "but I'm sorry he's hurting and I'm sorry you are."

[turk_mailman]

Tseng nodded, a small bow of his head. And then he sighed, finally, finally letting himself look tired.

"If we have any say in the matter," he said, "then in some reality, there won't be any need for that hurting again. Break the timeline, break reality however you need to prevent the future you came to stop. But be aware that solving some problems only leads to further, unforeseen ones. You need to learn to be more vigilant than you ever expected you'd have to be. You can save the world and save yourselves. You will."

He inclined his chin a little.

"That," he informed her, "is the job. No margin left for error."

[intraspective]

It made her heart twist to see him look like that. Both because she'd never seen Tseng so open before and because of the trust (and love?) it implied that this one allowed her this.

"Always so demanding," she said, but she wasn't teasing not really. "You know me, Tseng. Better than I might know myself right now. I'll get the job done."

[turk_mailman]

"You'll get the job done," Tseng echoed. And then he nodded. "I'll send you anything you need in order to make certain that happens."

Get enough realities and false starts involved, and maybe, eventually, somebody would actually get it right.

[intraspective]

"Thank you," she said, though it wasn't enough. Not for her and, she suspected, not for him either.

"Are you--can I ask--are you happy?"

Even without her? Had they managed that?

[turk_mailman]

It was... it was hard, coming up with an answer, in that moment. But Tseng paused, and gave that question the consideration it deserved.

"We've made a home," he said, finally. "We have a son, who has his mother's eyes and a smile he must have picked up from Zack, somehow, and we have one another. If anybody had asked me years ago if that would be enough, I don't know that I could have said yes. We've lost too much, there are too many scars."

He lifted his chin faintly.

"But scars do fade in time. Life continues. There are days that the answer is still no. But those days are gradually becoming replaced by the days we can say yes."

[intraspective]

It was hard, too, listening to such a blunt answer.

But Ino appreciated it all the same and took comfort from it. They might not be happy all the time, but there were times when they were. That mattered.

She loved him just a little, just for that.

"I'm glad," she said quietly, "that there are days where you're happy. Kueng seems like a good boy." She was grateful for the chance to get to know him and hoped he felt the same. "I wish you were happier, but that's always been an uphill battle with you." She was teasing, very gently now. "Right now, my you is considering the oddity of having a son with me and likely trying to figure out what it meant when I kissed him at the Gold Saucer last weekend."

[turk_mailman]

Tseng blinked at that.

And then, almost impossibly, he smiled.

"I distinctly remember wanting to strangle you that night."