intraspective | Apartment Above the Boards, Thursday Afternoon

Ino hadn't wanted to... not bother Zack, exactly, but hadn't wanted to bring anything up that was too raw given everything, and then coupled with Tseng's visit (which had confused and intrigued her in about equal amounts, with an odd, unexpected dash of finding it comforting that he'd come--or, perhaps, comfortable was the better word?) well, Ino just hadn't wanted to step ungently.

There was a time and place for that.

But she and Reno really did need to get going, the trip Zack was going on with the school gave them time to get away more or less scot-free, and... before that happened, she didn't want to hold back Aerith's letters.

Tseng hadn't wanted to punish Aerith any further--well, Ino had never wanted to at all.

"Hey," she said, smiling as Zack came in after class. "What did you cover today?"

She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, sorting through notes from her shop, not having bothered to put on more than a tank-top and shorts on today, since she hadn't been out.

[For the modded-with-permission guy, but also open for calls and/or visitors.]

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From:

intraspective

“He gave me some letters to give to you,” she admitted. “Can I ask how the conversation went?”

Tseng, after all, tended toward the dramatic.

He was quiet, unless he lost his temper, but he was very dramatic.

From:

puppy_fair

Zack let out a small huff, his smile wavering for a moment.

"I mean, I didn't punch him into the duck pond?"

That was good, right?

From:

intraspective

That was good, and it confirmed what she’d told Tseng: he weren’t done with him, not even a little.

“That’s good,” she said, “since the ducks didn’t do nothing to deserve that.”

Tseng had, yeah, she couldn’t deny that.

From:

puppy_fair

Zack nodded a little.

"They're good ducks." He fell silent a moment, and then added, "He had letters?"

From:

intraspective

“Yeah,” she said, quietly. “From Aerith. She wrote you the whole time you were…”

Ino trailed off.

“He kept them for you.”

From:

puppy_fair

Zack blinked, his arms tightening around her slightly, unconsciously.

"She wrote?" A beat. "He kept them?"

There... there were a lot of strange implications to that. Zack didn't know what to think.

So he settled on, "Why?"

From:

intraspective

“Why did she write? Why did he keep them?” she asked, glancing up and making no protest about the sudden squishiness. “Or… why did he want to give them to you now?”

From:

puppy_fair

Zack was quiet for a few moments. He could imagine why she wrote. Most of his questions were about Tseng.

"Why did he keep them? Why give them to me now?"

From:

intraspective

Ino thought about that.

"I think he kept them out of guilt," she ventured, after a bit. "And affection, but he's got a nasty streak of blamin' himself for shit that runs right down. And as for now... I don't know, but I think that maybe it's 'cause he's just now comin' to the terms with... you ain't disappearin' again. You're gonna stick around."

From:

puppy_fair

"I mean..." Zack frowned a little, mulling that over. "It isn't as though I have much choice."

Going home was off the table.

And where else was there?

From:

intraspective

Oh, Zack.

"No," she said, feeling a bit helpless and sad. "No, I didn't mean physically, Zack. I mean, he--he ain't worried now that you're going to die."

From:

puppy_fair

"I wasn't dead before," Zack noted, softly. "He knew that."

But he'd been as good as dead.

Tseng had known that, too.

From:

intraspective

"But you..."

Gods, Ino wasn't prepared for this conversation. Not even a little.

"You were as good as," she said, her throat tight, "and he had no idea if or when that'd go from good as to actually dead."

From:

puppy_fair

Zack went quiet at that, just pulling her more tightly into a hug, then. He wasn't sure anything could possibly come from his mouth that wouldn't make this moment worse, but he felt compelled to try.

"He had them looking for us," he muttered. "When we were running. He had the other Turks looking."

From:

intraspective

She closed her eyes, hands curling around his arms.

"I know."

That was soft.

"He had to, on orders of the President. But they... they didn't have orders to kill you." Ino huffed something that wasn't a laugh, but wasn't a sob either. Something tangled. "Well, they did, but they didn't."

It made sense, to the Turks.

From:

puppy_fair

"They did but they didn't? What does that even mean?" Zack blew out a ragged sigh. "The company wanted us dead or in custody again. But the Turks... didn't...?"

From:

intraspective

"Tseng wanted you safe," she said, very softly, the words coming out small. It still hurt, the way it had all happened, but what Tseng had intended--that she was clear on. "And the Turks... oh, yeah, we're... we're Shinra's dogs. But we're Turks first."

It was a line that was unspoken about most of the time.

"So if the President says one thing and the boss says another, the boss gets listened to. 'Sorry, Mr. President, they got away'. With the fact that the Turks were meant to help with that escape being not mentioned."

From:

puppy_fair

Zack looked down toward the floor at that.

"I didn't know."

That tore at his heart a little.

"Cissnei gave us her bike."

From:

intraspective

"I ain't, no one expected you to know," she said, tripping over the words. "I didn't know, 'till near the end, 'cause Tseng had no choice but to include me then. And for some of them, it weren't for you at all, it were 'cause the boss said so, so they did. Turks back Turks."

Ino brushed her fingers against his forearm.

"Cissnei did it for you, though. She missed you."

From:

puppy_fair

"I think she was the first one besides Tseng to realize who we were," Zack said, softly. "I ran into her on the beach the night we escaped. She had her orders. She didn't know until she found us that we were the..."

The samples.

"... The targets."

From:

intraspective

There was a pause in there, something that hurt, but she didn't know how to coax it out.

"Yeah," Ino said, "that's how the Turks work."

From:

puppy_fair

"Need-to-know basis," Zack murmured. "Cissnei didn't need to know."

From:

intraspective

"And... it weren't safe, even for the Turks to know," she said, resting her head against his chest. "The less everyone knew, the safer everyone was. 'Cept, Tseng had to know all of it, and I... well, I found out."