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English
Series:
Part 1 of The Time We Have Now (Remake Continuity)
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Published:
2022-07-13
Completed:
2023-02-19
Words:
143,908
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37/37
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219
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85
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Disordered

Chapter 37: Then, Morning Comes

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The next time Tseng opened his eyes, it was morning, and he knew, with absolutely clarity, what he had to do.

There was no time to lose. He needed to act right now, while his resolve was strong, before Rufus woke up and started muddling his thoughts again.

He slid his arm out from under Rufus’ cheek, supporting Rufus’ head with his other hand. Rufus was so deeply asleep his jaw hung slack. His eyelashes didn’t even flutter. Tseng rolled away, crawled under the burlap sack to exit their sleeping den, and stood up straight. The clothes they’d stripped off by the standpipe yesterday were piled in a heap on the wooden bench closest to the carriage door. He swiftly got dressed, borrowing Rufus’ charcoal beanie to cover his tattoo. The clammy chilliness in the air made him certain it wasn’t much past dawn. He wasted a couple of minutes looking for a pen or pencil, something to write a note with, but found nothing. Never mind; if he ran all the way, he could do what he had to do and be back in thirty minutes. Rufus was so fast asleep he’d never even know Tseng was gone.

From the bottom of his bag Tseng produced a red t-shirt. He went outside, picked up a rock from the ground, climbed the ladder fixed on the outside of the carriage, spread the t-shirt on the roof, and pinned it in place with the rock. As he climbed down again he remembered Rufus’ rifle. Knowing Rufus, it was probably loaded. Tseng didn’t know how to take the bullets out. He’d have to hide the whole rifle, bullets and all. 

On his way to the chain-link fence he found the perfect spot: a big pile of scrap metal heaped between two old shipping containers. Kneeling down, he pulled aside a tangle of steel cable and pushed the rifle, muzzle-first, as far as it would go, which wasn’t far enough. The butt end of the stock could still be seen. He covered it up with some wet cardboard that lay nearby, and got to his feet, dusting off his hands. That’ll have to do, he decided.

Nobody was going to die today if he could help it.

He ran so fast that he was gasping for breath by the time he reached the shops. Nothing had opened yet and there was hardly anyone around, just a tea-cart lady with her thermos flasks and a couple of old men who didn’t spare him a glance, blowing and sipping on their cups of hot sweet tea.

The telephone booth was empty. Midgar’s public telephones were often broken or vandalised, but when he picked up the receiver, he got a dial tone. His luck was holding, it seemed. He took his wallet from his pocket, removed the business card he’d been saving, dropped some gil into the coin slot, and used his shoulder to pin the receiver to his ear while he read from the business card he held in one hand and dialed the number with the other.

The phone at the other end rang just once. “Yes, hello?” a woman’s weary voice answered. He was sure he’d heard that voice before. The lady with no legs, in the wheelchair. She was at work early. Maybe she’d been up all night.

“Hello, can I speak to Commander Veld, please?”

The leather of her wheelchair creaked as she sat up. “Who is this?” She sounded different now. Alert. Careful.

“It’s Tseng.”

“Oh.” The woman breathed in. “Ah. Tseng. We - we’ve been hoping you’d call. The Chief isn’t here, but hold on a sec and I’ll patch you through to him. Don’t hang up, okay? Where are you calling from? Just in case we lose the line.”

“Under-Seven.”

“Under-Seven.” He heard a scratching sound. She was writing it down. “Where in Under-Seven?”

“We’re okay,” he said, feeling certain she would want to know that.

“Of course you are. Tseng, hon, where in Under-Seven are you? Can you tell me? Are you calling from the station? Or - Oh, Chief, it’s Tseng. Tseng, I have the Chief for you now.”

There was a crackle and a buzz and then Commander Veld saying, “Tseng? Do you have something to tell me?” and when Tseng heard that familiar, deep voice rumbling through the static, it felt as if the heavy weight he’d been struggling to carry had suddenly been lifted from his shoulders. He could breathe again.

“Tseng? Are you there?”

“Yes, sir. We’re okay, sir, don’t worry.”

“I wasn’t worried. I knew you’d look after him.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Shall we come and get you now?”

“Yes, sir.”

He described their location. “I know it,” said the Commander.

“I put out a red shirt. On the roof.”

“We’ll look for it. Sit tight. We won’t be long.”

He hung up and stepped out of the phone booth. Already in the distance he could hear the helicopters coming. There must have been a couple close by. If he wanted to get to Rufus first, he needed to run.

He slammed breathlessly into the carriage and  found Rufus standing there waiting for him, dressed in his black jeans and army boots and a graphic t-shirt of an exploding bomb that he’d helped himself to from Tseng’s gym-bag, presumably because his own shirt was still wet. Tseng was glad to see he’d put some clothes on. “We need to get out of here,” said Rufus. “There’s no time to lose. They’ve found us.” He was talking too fast, his tongue tripping over itself, hands and eyes quivering with nervous energy. “I can’t find my gun. Did you move it?”

“Rufus,” said Tseng. “It’s okay.”

“We’ll have to leave our stuff behind. It’ll only slow us down. If we go to the pump yard we were in yesterday I think we can find a manhole down to the sewer. They’ll never find us in there. Come on.”

He moved to grab Tseng’s wrist. Tseng quickly stepped backwards, out of reach. He didn’t dare risk it. If he allowed himself to touch Rufus, he might never be able to let him go.

Rufus scowled at him. “What’s wrong with you? Come on.”

Tseng felt very calm. “No, Rufus.”

“We can’t stay here. They’ll be here any minute. Can’t you hear them?”

“I can hear them.”

“Then - “

Rufus went very still. A suspicion had occurred to him. He was trying with all his heart to resist it, but its logic couldn’t be denied. Tseng had known it wouldn’t take him long to put two and two together.

“Why are you wearing my beanie?” said Rufus.

Tseng took it off and tossed it to him. Rufus twisted the woolen cap in his hands. “Where were you? Just now. Where did you go? To the station?”

“No. To that street. Where we were yesterday.”

He watched Rufus’ eyes as the memory of the street’s layout came back to him: the food stall, the vendor, the phone booth. Rufus didn’t want to believe it, though he understood Tseng wasn’t lying. The struggle going on inside him was painful to witness, yet Tseng felt honour-bound not to look away.

He’d had to do it. Rufus had left him no choice. It was the only way. This wasn’t something they could have discussed and decided together. Rufus would never have agreed. He’d had to make this decision alone, for the both of them. Rufus wasn’t stupid; it wouldn’t take him long to see why it had to be like this. And once he understood, it wouldn’t hurt so much. 

“You called them,” said Rufus.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because. It’s not possible. This, you and me. It can’t be.”

“I don’t understand.”

“For us, like this, running away together, it’s not possible. It was… just a story. A beautiful story. But it’s not real.” Tseng didn’t know what more he could say. Surely the reasons were obvious. Spelling them out would be an insult to Rufus’ intelligence.

“What the fuck are you talking about? How is this, you, me, not real? It’s the only thing that’s real.”

“I don’t mean not real. I’m sorry. I mean it can’t be.”

“Of course it can. I love you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” The initial shock was beginning to wear off. Rufus’ voice rose in anger. “Sorry? You’re fucking sorry? You told me you loved me.”

“Yes.”

“Was that not real either?”

Tseng gazed at him helplessly. This argument was pointless. Even if Rufus won the argument, it wouldn’t change anything.  The roaring helicopters - three of them at least, and maybe more - were closing in. They had maybe a minute left.

“Do you love me?” Rufus shouted, “Or don’t you? Just answer me!”

“I told you! It’s not possible!”

“Why not? It wasn’t impossible yesterday! You were very into it yesterday, as I recall. Or was that not real either? You were just faking it?”

“No!”

“But then why? If it was real then, why isn’t it real now? If it wasn’t impossible yesterday, why is it suddenly impossible today? What changed?”

“I woke up!”

Tseng had to shout this at the top of his lungs. Their narrow wooden railway carriage was acting like the sound box of an acoustic guitar, magnifying the reverberations of the helicopter blades’ remorseless whump-whump-whump. The floorboards trembled under their feet. As if struck by an earth tremor, one wall of their sleeping den suddenly collapsed inwards.

Talking was impossible. Nothing could be heard above the rotors and the engines. Tseng and Rufus stared at each other. Rufus was breathing hard, nostrils flaring. Then, unexpectedly, the helicopters withdrew - not very far; they remained hovering close by, loud enough to make the carriage shake, but sufficient for Rufus to deliver the thoughts he’d spent the last minute or so composing.

“I can’t believe you did this!” he shouted. “After everything that’s happened between us! How could you? I love you. I love you. I gave up everything to be with you. I would have gone to the ends of the earth with you. Why didn’t you think that was worth fighting for? I would have died for you!“

Tseng could have said, I would have died for you too, but what about after I’m dead? I can’t keep you safe. You’re too important. I’m not strong enough. We’re just kids! It would have been the truth, or a truth. But that wasn’t what he said.

“Don’t be stupid!” he shouted back. “You don’t die. You’re the Little President. You think they will let you die? Never! You do what you like and when you’re in over your head they come find you and take you home. They will always find you. Listen, I’ll tell you who dies. Wutaian troublemaker, that’s who! Nobody needs him.”

Rufus gasped. “You’re turning me over to them to save your own skin?”

A loud rap on one of the carriage windows made them both jump. It was Griff, looking in from outside, his nose practically pressed against the glass, accompanied by another Turk Tseng didn’t recognise. When he saw he had their attention, Griff shouted, “Hey! You all right?”

“Thanks for fucking nothing,” said Rufus, though whether this was aimed at him or Abe or all the Turks generally, Tseng couldn’t say.

The carriage gave a sudden sideways lurch as Commander Veld’s bulky figure stepped into the doorway.

Rufus sat down with a thump on the nearest bench. “I will never be able to forgive you for this.” He sounded more surprised than angry, as if he’d just learned something about himself he hadn’t known before.

A few brisk steps brought Commander Veld to Rufus’ side. Griff hadn’t budged from his spot outside the window. As he passed by Tseng on his way to Rufus, the old Turk turned his head and said, “Good job, son.”

Three little words. Rufus heard them. His face changed. He looked suddenly older. Like a man. Like a stranger.

In that moment, if Tseng could have undone it all, if he could have run backwards in time one brief hour and chosen differently, he would have.

“Oh my god.” Rufus’ voice was barely audible.

Commander Veld touched his arm. “Time to go.”

Rufus said, “You were working for them all along.”

“Nonsense,” said the old Turk gruffly, putting a hand under Rufus’ elbow to help him up.

Rufus didn’t resist. Nor did he speak again. Commander Veld escorted him outside. Tseng followed them as far as the carriage door, but Rufus fixed his gaze straight ahead and never looked Tseng’s way once. The hovering helicopter descended, stirring up a whirlwind of dust that forced Tseng to shield his eyes. A rope ladder unfurled. Rufus climbed it. Veld followed behind him. The ladder was pulled up, the door slammed shut. The helicopter flew away, a bullet of glinting metal against the backdrop of the underplate, and then a speck in the narrow band of blue sky, and then, nothing.

He became aware that Griff was standing beside him. “Tseng,” said Griff, “You all right?” The Turk was holding Rufus’ trooper uniform and helmet, rolled into a bundle in his arms.

Can’t you see my heart is breaking?

Tseng turned his face away. He couldn’t bear for anyone to be looking at him right now.

Another helicopter came to hover above them. Griff raised his voice. “Gonna take you home now.”

Tseng shook his head.

“I got orders.”

Tseng didn’t care.

The helicopter hung overhead, waiting.

“Huh,” said Griff. “Okay.” With one flap of his hand the Turk waved the helicopter away. Like a well-trained dog, it wheeled in mid-air and buzzed off, heading for the rim of the underplate.

Griff said, “I’ll go on ahead, wait for you at the station. You come on when you’re ready. If you ain’t there in an hour, we come looking. Deal? Speak.”

“Okay.”

“Okay. Good.”

But Griff didn’t leave. He went on standing there for a minute. “Hey,” he said at last. “For what it’s worth, you did the right thing.”

Tseng already knew that. It didn’t help.

Griff crunched away across the gravel as if he knew exactly where he was going; as if he knew this train yard and all the paths through it better than the back of his own hand. In his dark business suit he ought to have looked out of place, but he didn’t.

Tseng sat down in the doorway of the carriage, hugging his knees to his chest. He had expected to cry once he was alone, but though he waited and waited, no tears came. He felt empty and dry inside. That was all.

He rose and went back inside the carriage. He needed to pack his clothes into his gym bag. He added Rufus’ wet shirt to his bag as well. Then he took it out again. Holding onto a shirt for sentimental reasons would be stupid. Weak. He should leave it here. Maybe somebody who needed a shirt would find it. It wouldn’t mean anything to them. They’d just think they were lucky to find such a great shirt. It must have cost a fortune, they’d think. I wonder who it used to belong to.

But they’d know, wouldn’t they? Because there was a name-tape sewn inside the collar. Rufus Shinra was here. Tseng angrily stuffed the shirt back into his bag and zipped it shut.

Then he set off to walk to the station.

 

Notes:

That's the end of this story, but of course it's far from the end of their story. These two can no more live their lives apart from each other than than Pluto and Charon can break away from each other's orbits.

This fic was originally intended as the prequel to "Caged", but it took on a life of its on and now I'm substantially re-writing "Caged" to be a narratively coherent sequel to this fic. There will be more after that. It's going to be a proper series. I'll even think of a title for it, eventually. (Who am I kidding? I'll probably nick it from Leonard Cohen.)

I've had a great time writing this fic, and I remained constantly delighted by all of you, dear readers, who have come along for the ride. Thank you so much for taking the time to read, and, I hope, enjoy, the Midgar adventures of Iron Plough and Sock-Sausage. Go well.

PS - Some of you might recognise where the title of this chapter comes from. Hint: it's Square Enix, but not FFVII.

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