A/N: Ah, hello there! This is yet another one of Catsitta's infamous time travel fics, except this time, there is a new star in the spotlight. Cloud gets sent back in time more often than not, but what about Reno? One of those 'What if' fics that has been bouncing around inside my head, begging to be written.

Probably will end up a three to five shot, like Cause and Effect and The Battle of Nibelheim. Speaking of which, I am almost finished with the Epilogue of Cause and Effect and it should be posted either later this week, or sometime in June (I'm moving out of the state I'm living in come June 2nd). Also, for fans of Fourth Time's the Charm, chapter thirty-six is in the works. Hehe. I've been really busy lately and stress has been eating my plot bunnies. So, please enjoy, review and favorite! I do read every review and appreciate them, even if I do not always have a chance to reply (soon I will have access to a computer that does not have a personal feud with Fanfiction dot Net).

Anywho, I'm rambling. Onto the story!

Word Count: 2,305

Pairing(s)(undetermined): RenoxCloud(?), SephirothxCloud(?), ZackxAerith(?)

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the plot. This venture is for fun and not profit.

Reflection

By Catsitta

Act I

—The act of reflecting or the state of being reflected—

It was hardly the first time a stranger crawled their way into the underplate slums, but this one caught their attention. Men and women paused to watch as the boy, no older than nine or ten, slugs through the muck and darkness, alone and with a bowed head. A gray, tattered suit jacket lays loose over slim shoulders, large enough to swallow up his small frame like a cloak.

He stumbles now and then, ill-fitting dress shoes catching against a bit of rubbish, but the boy continues his lonely trek.

What strikes the slum dwellers as unusual is not his state of dress but rather the void expression drawn tight upon his angular features. Malnutrition has stripped away the youthful roundness of a child's face, replacing it with a visage of a much older man, one with a triangular jaw and pointed chin; eyes sunken and cradled on half-moon bruises swollen from lack of sleep. Those very eyes are like glass, glistening in the rare spots of light in the underplate darkness, yet otherwise lifeless and dull.

Such pretty eyes, though, one might remark. They are narrow and slightly feline, the iris a smoky shade of green—a sharp contrast to the crimson of his hair. Short, dirtied and tangled are the boy's striking locks, and ragged bangs stick against half-healed wounds, ones more likely than not to scar.

It is a common thing, abuse. Children and wives are often beaten without repercussion done to their abuser. But the marks on the empty-eyed child are livid, angry sores—fresh, untended and left to fester.

Eventually, and expectedly, the boy succumbs to his hurts and crumples to the ground, one arm outstretched towards the doorstep of a long since abandoned church. Empty green eyes spark momentarily with life, before a shudder passes through his body and he goes limp with unconsciousness.

No one knows where is from and it is a wise rule to follow in the slums to leave strangers well alone.

Perhaps that is why no one comes to the boy's aid…except an eight-year-old girl who once dreamt of his name. A girl with demons in her own past to face…and in her own future to endure. One with emerald eyes pulsating with the very light of life and a small, white flower in her hair.

000X000

Cigarette smoke escapes his lips as he lets out a ragged breath. The sweetened smoke spills forth in a wispy cloud of white, swirling and curling in the murky gloom. Then, a cough rattles his body and as it subsides, he cusses and takes in another deep inhalation of his favored vice. Countless people told him to stop it, that he would kill himself, rot out his lungs and all that crap.

Tck. He was a Turk and one of the best at that! Cigarettes would be the last thing on the list to kill him. Even the alcohol he drowned himself deep within at any possible opportunity had little chance of snuffing out his miserable existence. No. He was a killer. He had lived his life that way and it was how he would die. Either on a mission with a sinful breed of honor, or at the hands of another killer, be it Turk or a different assassin.

A smirk crept onto his lips.

Laughter threatened to escape his chest.

So he shook his head and drew in one last breath of poison, before flicking away the dying embers from his fingertips.

This was how his life was and would always be. A pathetic existence carved out in the flesh and bones of his assigned targets. He was a lapdog. A hired hand. There was no changing. Once a Turk always a Turk, and a Turk did his duty until the day he died—and in the process, they all fell from grace. Precious innocence is forever lost, stained with blood until there is nothing but crimson memories better left forgotten.

How long had it been since he had last dared to be defiant? He could not remember. It was a façade, his cool albeit toxic arrogance. Who he was inside was but a hollow shell? A puppet. More so than even the Remnants of those woebegone days long ago. His childish, rebellious nature was crippled way before then, hadn't it? Yes. When the President snapped, he came to attention.

It never bothered him.

Not even now.

Even while he sat here alone in the darkness of some abandoned district in Edge. He could faintly remember when the town was new. Midgar was but smoky memories now. Not that it was very important to remember either…Although, it might have been nice to recall why he remained here…And perhaps, maybe, what his name was.

Yes, his name. Of all the things stripped from him when he became a Turk, his name was the first. Now, some thirty years after the fact, he wanted it back. He wanted to remember who he was before he became Reno. Because Reno is a liar with a charming smile and wicked temper. Reno is a deadly killer practiced in the art of murder. Reno is a smooth talker who always had a knack for getting into trouble, and using his wits and fists to get out of it.

Reno is a Turk, through and through. .

He closed his eyes, his smirk fading. Calloused fingertips traced the scars marking his face. Scars he traced over with tattoos, forever imprinting in crimson the blood he bled. The very blood that proved to remind him that he was human…no matter how many times he came to doubt it after a stone-cold kill.

Alive…yes, Reno was alive, but he was not living. What kind of life was it, that of a Turk? Looking back, he knew that it was the only life for him…the only path that opened. He was a fighter, willing to endure all trials ahead with stubborn ambition—pride and honor be damned.

Feeling old sorrows well up, the redhead lit another cigarette.

There was nothing better for him to do than sit here and wait…

And wait he did.

He waited until the target he had been waiting to meet for the past six hours made his appearance before unsheathing his EMR. Fighting was something inherently familiar. An act ingrained into every bone and muscle until his body moved on its own accord, allowing him to let his mind go blank, and the thoughtless killer to emerge.

What he did not expect, however, was for his target to carry that same reckless abandon. The eco-terrorist, a non-descript man with a revolver on one hip, made his approach with a crazed grin. By the time Reno had a chance to realize what he held clasped in a gloved hand, it was too late. A button was pushed on a PHS and everything went white.

Glass shattered. Cement cracked. Skin burned.

His heart pounded franticly…then it slowed.

The white cleared. He lay prone on the floor, his heartbeat echoing inside his skull, pounding the sound against his brain. A strange numbness held his limbs and he could not catch his breath. Warmth and cold battled each other beneath his skin, and there was a puddle of damp beneath his frame. Was it blood? His blood?

A soft voice murmured something unintelligible at the outskirts of his mind.

Then, the world once again plunged into blinding white, his very essence drawn free of the mortal body in which it inhabited.

"You're dying."

Reno wanted to laugh…He was hearing voices…

"You don't want to die, not yet…do you?"

Of course not. His life was a miserable one, but he was looking forwards to many more years of pitiful existence, if just to continuing screwing with President Rufus' and his fellow Turks' minds.

"There is something you have not had a chance to accomplish. Something that could change everything…save everyone."

"What are yah blabberin' 'bout?" Reno asked the light imbued void, only mildly curious to where that voice was coming from. It sounded familiar…Soft, feminine and loving in a sisterly sort of way.

"I am giving you that chance."

The light began to pulse, like a heartbeat, green entwining with the white in a glittery display.

"Be brave, Reno. Find your Light. Fight the Darkness before it consumes your soul. Become who you were supposed to be. This is your story unwritten. Make it true."

"I'm no hero…" Reno murmured.

"Not yet."

000X000

"Reno."

The boy opened his eyes, confusion flooding him as he stared into emerald irises. A faint smile drifted onto the little girl's lips and she began to card her fingers through his hair. Reno recognized those eyes…that face.

"Aerith?"

"Welcome back."

"B-but you're dead!"

The brunette giggled softly and pressed a dainty kiss on his forehead,"So are you."

"Then how?"

"The Planet works in mysterious ways, Reno. Never easy to understand."

There was a pregnant pause as the two children—with memories of their broken selves—stared at each other. "I dropped the Sector 7 plate… I've killed 'cause a man told me to pull a trigger… I helped kidnap you…tried to kill you…your friends…why?" Reno shook his head with disbelief, "Why me?"

"Because no one else can." Aerith's expression and words were grave, a stark contrast to her previously lighthearted demeanor. "You're the Planet's chosen, Reno. She saw in you a chance for salvation. A Light in the Dark. You can save Her. You can forge the path that will circumvent the Fall of Angels, Calamity's Rebirth and the Weapon's Awakening. You can stop the Crisis. The Geostigma. Everything!" Her rising pitch dropped and she added in the merest whisper, "All you have to do is save yourself."

"One life aint gonna make that kinda difference." Was Reno's bitter retort.

"The flapping of a single butterfly's wings can cause a tsunami on the other side of the world."

"What?"

"One individual can take the single action that changes everything as we know it. Your choices will determine the Planet's fate, Her life or Her death."

"Well aint that a kick in the pants…"

"Huh?"

"Nuthin'…" Reno pushed himself up so that he was sitting, cringing slightly at the stiffness in his muscles, "But hey, can yah tell me at all how this…time travel stuff works…like, how did the Planet send me back or why today of all days…"

Aerith placed a hand on his shoulder and urged for him to lay back down, "I don't know how the Planet works Her ways. I merely hear Her cries…Her whims. She sings for you, Reno. She sings of sadness and pain, of loss and a mother's love."

Faded, forgotten memories welled up to the surface at those words. Reno's hands drifted to his face and his fingers stroked smooth, new skin. Scars. Scars left for him to always carry, a reminder of his first failure and earliest brush with death. His mother—a once beautiful overplate gem whose family fell into debt and, ultimately, the slums—took ill from pneumonia and was bedridden for a week before fever overcame her and stole away her life. Reno was eight at the time and knew plenty about death. Tears refused to come to his eyes as he watched his mother's body grow still. And they still refused to fall when his father—more rat than man for all his tricks and lies—came home drunk and violent.

He kicked his son out of his home that day, bloodied and bruised, too weak from poverty to do much more than stumble away. At some point, he gave up on staying on his feet and as he fell to his knees, he prayed for death to come, to steal him away and return him to his mother's arms.

But the clothes he wore…Reno, snapping free of his memories, realized were not the same as then. No, they belonged to him all right, but not at this point in time. If he looked closely enough, he could see that the gray fabric was, in fact, faded navy. The white dress shirt beneath bore old stains and cigarette burns. This was his Turk suit. But how…?

Aerith's hands closed over his own and she smiled with sympathy in her eyes.

It was too much for Reno.

"I'm no hero…"

"Not yet."

"I'm just a slum rat…I'm ShinRa's lapdog. I do the dirty work with a smile, yo!"

A wry smile played upon petal-shaped lips,"Not yet."

"Not…yet?" Reno frowned, taking a moment to process what he was hearing. Not yet. Then it hit him. This was supposed to be his story unwritten. Nothing was yet set in stone. He was not a Turk. He had never taken a life. He was free of every bind that once tangled him up. So why did he feel chained down? Broken? "Aerith…This is crazy."

"Life never is an easy road."

"What am I supposed to do, huh?" Reno cringed inwardly as a sharp pain lashed at his nerves. "I'm a kid. A slum rat at that. The only way I got outta the slums was tah join the Turks. And once you're in, you aint ever getting' out."

"I can't give you the answers, Reno. You have to find them on your own."

"What about you then, huh? What are you gonna do now that you're here and alive again?"

"Wait and watch." Aerith stood up and smoothed the wrinkles in her dress. "I'm a Cetra, Reno. My people bend to fate; we do not force our wills upon it. But you are human, and your kind can and does change fate. And you in particular are ruthless and willing enough to do so."

They again fell silent, green eyes locked together in a clash of wills.

Neither side relented.

000TBC000

A/N: Please review! Reviews make me happy and usually inspire me to write. Thanks for reading. =3