What can I say? Last week I wasn't feeling fluffy - now I kind of am.

If He Said Yes

Well – this is new.

Tifa tries not to look too surprised as the Turk enters the bar. Not that Turks in her bar is an unheard-of phenomenon: Rude and Reno still show up from time to time, although since Rude has finally grown out of his painfully obvious silent crush on her, and now it's apparent to everyone that Cloud is a keeper after all, their visits have become less frequent. Tifa smiles to herself. Even she's starting to believe that, at last, Cloud allows himself to see the 7th Heaven as his home. The 7th Heaven, and her – an ordinary Nibel Mountain girl with no supernatural powers beyond the strength of her own body, whose healing skills, now the materia has run out, are limited to a kiss and a band-aid, and who kills every houseplant she's ever tried to grow. Has Cloud settled for second best? She tells herself that he hasn't. He is settled – and that's more than she ever hoped for.

Still half smiling she looks beyond Elena expectantly, but the door swings closed.

Elena's smile is tentative. "Just me," she says.

"What can I get you?"

"Cold beer please," Elena says – careful to emphasise the 'cold'. Tifa has a fondness for the Western Continental brews of her teenaged years – Dragon Bite, Mount Nibel, Green Fountain - cask beers, served at room temperature. Reno's developed a taste for them, and he's on the way to converting Rude, but Elena's not convinced. She mostly drinks beer because the others do, and at least the cold suppresses the taste. Glancing around the almost empty bar Elena says, "Oh – I'm sorry. Were you just about to close up?"

"I was," Tifa nods, "But it's okay. Cloud's out tonight – kids are in bed. I'm in no hurry."

"Right – then – let me get you one too."

"Well – thanks," Tifa agrees, only slightly wary. "I could do with a drink." She flips the cap off Elena's ice-cold bottle, offering a glass, which Elena declines, and draws herself half a pint of Dragon Bite. Elena pays, and hesitates, wondering where to sit.

Tifa calls last orders to the one remaining customer, who shakes his head, downs the remains of his pint, and leaves with a mumbled, "'Night."

"Good night, Deak!" Tifa says. Then she walks around the bar, and takes a seat at one of the round metal tables. "Join me?" she asks Elena.

"Thanks."

The two women sit opposite each other, drinking. Not friends – no longer enemies. Over the last year or so Tifa has sometimes wondered about Elena. What has it been like for her on the other side of all that has happened? Has her life worked out the way she imagined it would? Dumb question. Things as they are, who in Gaia can say that?

Without intending to, Tifa hears herself asking – "So – I suppose one of the worst days of my life was one of your best?"

Elena looks up, startled. "What? What do you mean?"

"Sector Seven? That's when you joined the Turks, isn't it? After Reno was injured. That's what you said – in the mythril mines."

"Oh. Yes. Well – the day after." For a moment Elena looks down at her hand, which has tightened its grip on the beer bottle. Then she looks directly at Tifa, defiant. "Yes," she says. "That was one of the happiest days of my life. It was what I'd been working for, for years. I won't apologise for that."

"Did you know then that Shin-Ra was responsible for dropping the plate?"

"Not on that day. But soon afterwards, yes. It did – take the shine off."

"Take the shine off," Tifa repeats. Her head is full of images – Jesse, Biggs, Wedge, rubble and twisted wire, the memory of realizing that friends, neighbours and customers were somewhere underneath –

"You were a terrorist," Elena states, and Tifa knows that – yes – that's what she was. The word seems alien to her now – the stuff of news broadcasts and spy dramas – nothing to do with her life. But perhaps the word Turk is like that for Elena? Or perhaps its meaning has changed, so that it's no longer an accusation.

"I thought I was doing the right thing," Tifa says.

"Yes," replies Elena. "So did I."

It's too strange for both of them. There seems to be nothing else to say on that subject. Something so huge ought to be an eternal barrier between them, but instead it's as though their minds separate it off into its own space. It's always present, but detached from the rest of their realities – a rock in the centre of the fast-flowing current of time and mundane life – vast and unchanging but, oddly, not an impediment. Or perhaps it's not completely unchanging? Perhaps it's eroding slowly.

Tifa thinks of Reeve's favourite words: Truth, Acceptance, Reconciliation. The big ideas of the World Regenesis Organisation. But she knows the truth – can't accept – will never be reconciled. And yet – life, as they say, goes on. If her post-apocalypse has a catchphrase, that simple cliché is it.

"So," Tifa says, her thoughts swept inevitably into the calmer waters of the present, "How's it going at New Shinra?"

"Yes," Elena nods, relieved, "Good. Busy – but I think it's going well. Rufus and Reeve are in talks – it's been on the news. Rebuilding…"

"Hm. As long as Rufus can control his empire-building inclinations."

"I think geostigma cured him of those."

Tifa shakes her head, with a cynical smile. "Don't bet on it."

"No. Well." Elena sips her drink. She tries not to cough when Tifa asks, in a deceptively mild tone, "And how's Tseng?"

x

Tseng still has all eighty-eight of her letters, sealed in their envelopes with the pathetic, short address – SFC Zack Fair, Shinra – and sealed again in a shallow box with a clear plastic lid. The letters survived Weapon and Meteor because after Zack's death Tseng took them home and put them away in a drawer he never opens. Why does he still keep them?

He didn't intend to keep them. After Zack died he meant to give them back to her – to tell her as much of the truth as he could. But things were chaotic – the Turks' own survival under threat – and there was never enough time.

Or perhaps he could have found time - if only he'd been determined enough.

He thought he would wait for calm – for a moment when he could do it properly, and as kindly as such a thing could be done. But he had no idea, then, how little time she had.

He's been tempted to read them – of course he has. It's not as though a Turk would have qualms about reading private correspondence, is it?

In this case, it is. He knows, anyway, the kinds of things she will have written. Years of surveillance have ensured that her voice is still clear in his mind. She will have teased, joked, questioned, accused, reprimanded and demanded, laid on the guilt and apologised. He couldn't bear to read a word even if his sense of duty to her allowed it, but he wonders. Is her tone varied across the long years of this one-sided conversation – capricious and elusive, as she always seemed to him? Is there a slow, descending arc from hope to resignation? Or does she maintain that determined, cheery optimism that was her most frequent disguise, with just a slip, from time to time, into anger or despair?

Sometimes Tseng thinks he should make a ceremony of returning the letters – cast them to the wind out on that bluff overlooking Midgar where Zack died – bury them in the remains of Elmyra's garden where Aerith's flowers still grow –scatter them into the pool inside the church that has become a place of pilgrimage in the slums.

She would have laughed.

She might have said, "Oh Tseng! What does it matter? He already knew everything important."

If he has any sense, he'll throw them in the trash and have done with it.

x

"Tseng?" Elena repeats, wishing, as she always does, that her fair skin wouldn't flush so obviously. "I think he's – well."

"No progress there, then?"

"Progress?" Elena sighs. There's no point faking it – it's obvious that Reno (or Rude? – no – Reno) must have said something, and she's past denying it, even to herself. "No, no progress. I don't think he ever really got over Aerith."

"Aerith – isn't really someone you get over," Tifa replies, and there's a fleeting expression in her eyes that could be pain. "It's more that you have to move on. She's always there. She was there when Cloud fought Sephiroth last time. When it rained."

Elena nods. "Rufus has spent a fortune on scientists – trying to prove that it was something in the water. But he knows, really. Once he accepted that Sephiroth's mind had survived, it followed. He can't deny that he was cured…"

"Did Tseng love her?" Tifa asks.

"Yes. I don't know exactly how. I think he was – in awe of her. You wouldn't think – a man like that…"

"What about Aerith? Did she love him?"

Elena sighs. "You knew her. I only spoke to her a couple of times – and certainly not about that! I don't know. She hated Shinra I suppose. But then, to judge from all the letters she wrote, she must have loved Zack. What about Cloud?"

"She didn't love Cloud," Tifa says. "Not really. I think she enjoyed the attention. She could be quite annoying. At least – you know. When she was alive."

"I think Tseng was fascinated and frustrated at the same time," Elena muses. Tifa laughs, more amused than bitter, after all this time. "That's how she did it. How many men can resist that combination? She made me feel…"

"What?" Elena urges. Talking about Aerith is as irresistible and painful as picking at a scab: she can't help herself.

"She made me feel two-dimensional," Tifa says. "On the one hand she was this irritating girl, fighting – if that's the word for it - in a stupid long dress, and flirting with everyone – and on the other she was…" Tifa's hand opens, helpless, in the air.

"Yes," agrees Elena sadly. "That's the problem. How do you compete with that?" She takes another sip from her bottle and adds, too quickly, "I was the one who told him. He was in hospital – after Sephiroth, at the temple – and we got intel that Aerith had been killed. Reno was going to do it – but I volunteered. I thought because I – I cared about him – I could do it better. But it was…"

"Rough?"

"I think that was the worst day of my life. I blurted it out – I was so useless! Reno would have been so much better. Tseng… The way he looked at me. I couldn't think of anything to say. And then he said, "Thank you, Elena," and I just – I walked away, but I might as well have run. And when I was out of the room I almost cried and Reno was nice to me. That's when I knew I'd really fucked up."

"You shouldn't give up," Tifa says. "I didn't. Cloud let her go, in the end.

"Tseng asked me out to dinner once," Elena sighs. "Before…"

"While Aerith was still alive?" Tifa asks. "Well – that's a good sign."

Elena shakes her head. "Aerith was with you by then. I think… I think it was a kind of revenge."

x

It's a question Tseng sometimes asks himself. What possessed him, in the Temple of the Ancients, to ask Elena out to dinner? He ascribes different motives to himself at different times – some generous, some damning. He wonders about truth – whether such a simple thing exists.

He asked her out because it was obvious that she had some kind of crush on him, and he wanted to – what? Talk it through? Let her down gently? Take advantage of it?

He asked her because Aerith finally, inevitably turned away from him – from Shinra. She had declared her enmity, and he was siding with his own. He asked her because Aerith had hurt him and he wanted to prove to someone – Aerith? Himself? – that he didn't care.

He asked her because she was the one woman he did have power over, and unlike Aerith, he knew she would say yes. Elena would have said yes to anything he asked in those days.

Because Elena was beautiful, but nothing like Aerith at all.

Because he hit Aerith – he hit Aerith - and he needed a woman who would hit him back harder if he ever tried anything like that again.

Because when Elena looked at him he saw nothing in her eyes but admiration, respect and – yes – desire. In Aerith's eyes he saw too many broken things: he saw the fragments of his tainted soul.

Or – when he's in a less melodramatic mood – he thinks that perhaps he just wanted dinner (and whatever else) with a cheerful, pretty girl who didn't make him feel a thousand years old. After all – it had been a hard couple of months. It had been a hard couple of years.

Most of these reasons contain parts of the truth. Tseng sometimes thinks about asking again, now that so much time has passed. But he always decides against it – bottles it, Reno would say. He's not sure, any longer, what Elena's answer would be.

x

"You should ask him," Tifa tells Elena, gesturing with her pint. They're on the second round now – drinks on the house. Tifa – more or less secure in Cloud's affections nowadays – is feeling generous in the face of Elena's unrequited plight, and there are two more bottles, beaded with condensation, in front of Elena. One of them already seems to be half empty.

"I couldn't," Elena protests. "What if he said no?"

Tifa – full of benevolent wisdom gives Elena a meaningful look. "Ah – but what if he said yes?"

"I don't think it was ever me he wanted," Elena says mournfully. "It was always her."

Tifa sighs. "I've been there," she says, "but it does no good worrying about it. Dilly-dally, shilly-shally as she would say."

"Would she?" Elena asks, incredulous. "Gaia – how annoying!"

Tifa's eyes widen for a moment, then she gives in and giggles. "I know. But look, Elena, this is how I see it. So what if Tseng thinks of you as girl-next-door, junior colleague, still the new girl after four years? So what if Aerith was - is – some wise, Ancient super-being? Point is – she's not here – you are. With men that's always more than half the battle. He might always love her in some way – Cloud always will, I suppose… But that doesn't mean Tseng can't love you too. Ask him. Trust me."

"You know what? I think I will." Elena sets down her third beer, barely touched, and stands up, running her hands over her neat suit.

"Where are you going?" Tifa enquires.

"I'm going to ask him."

"You know it's gone midnight?"

"Oh – he'll probably still be working. You know what he's like."

Tifa shakes her head. "Not really. But you do – that's what matters." She picks up the remains of her pint and raises the glass. "Good luck, Elena," Tifa says. But the door's already closing.

x

This restaurant is one of their favourites. The surviving areas of the slums have been rebuilt with surprising speed – the inhabitants much more practised than the upper-plate dwellers at making something out of nothing. The food here is simple and good. They both feel at ease away from the glitter and polish of Edge.

It's been a year. A year to the day, actually, as Elena knows perfectly well, although she's sure Tseng hasn't remembered. A year since she burst into his office (she was right – he was still working) and said, "I think you owe me a dinner date, Sir."

Tseng looks at Elena, beautiful in this soft candlelight – beautiful everywhere – and thinks about the shape of his life. He wonders whether Reno has carried out his request yet?

x

Rude knocks on the door of Reno's office. In the New Shinra Building there's space for separate offices for all of them. Rufus, of course, has the seventy-first floor, with its commanding views over Edge, to himself. Not even the WRO's impressive HQ stands so tall.

"Working late?" Rude asks.

"I'm almost done," Reno replies.

"Drink?"

"Yeah. Just gotta do something for the boss first."

"Rufus?"

"Tseng."

Rude motions towards the door with his head and raises his eyebrows behind his dark glasses, but Reno shakes his head. "Nah – stay. Won't take a minute." Rude watches as Reno opens the desk drawer. "Hey," he says, surprised, as Reno takes out a small, shallow box, "aren't those -?"

"Yes," says Reno. He tears the seal off the box, empties all eighty-eight letters into a metal in-tray and sets fire to the pile of paper with his cigarette lighter.

"What about the smoke alarms?" Rude asks.

"Disabled them in here. Leave health and fuckin' safety to Reeve and his kind."

"Hmm," Rude agrees.

They both fall silent as they watch the letters burn.

Reno opens the window, and, as soon as the tray is cool enough, tips the ashes out. It's hot tonight, with only the slightest of breezes even this high up, and, as the ashes drift away slowly, there are occasional soft sparks in the darkness that glow into life and are gone.

"Tseng asked you to do that?" Rude asks.

Reno shrugs. "Just said to get rid of them. Guess…"

"Yeah?"

"Guess it was time."

x

Tseng reaches across the table, and takes Elena's hand. "A year, today," he says.

Elena looks up at him. "You remembered!"

Her smile is incandescent, and what it ignites will endure across the years.

When they leave the restaurant, it starts to rain. Neither of them suggests calling a taxi. It's not far from here to Elena's apartment and they'd rather walk, together. Tseng offers Elena his jacket but she declines, smiling. The night is very warm - almost sultry – and this gentle, cooling rain nothing but a blessing.

Because it's about time Elena got her happy ending : )