fandomhighdorms | Main Campfire, Monday Evening

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Main Campfire, Monday Evening

"No, Kate, you can't have a s'more," Bobby said sternly to the cat who was currently nosing around the s'more ingredients he'd set up. "Because s'mores aren't for cats, that's why."

No, he couldn't actually understand cat. He's just Bobby, and physically incapable of shutting up for more than a few minutes at a time.

[ooc: open! location moved 'cos I'm a dolt who didn't notice there was already an evening post set at Ninth Hell. not deleting this time, I promise.]

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Most other members of ShinRa might ask if she'd lived topside, or bottom.

Zack didn't particularly care about that. That sort of thing was just details, and if she wanted to share, then she would.

"Bad experience with SOLDIER?" He was guessing. He kind of advertised that he was one by wearing the uniform, after all. And at least he couldn't take it personally if something like that happened to be the case.

"More like a conflict of interest," Elena said, with a grim sort of smile. "I'm out of uniform right now. Otherwise you would have guessed it already. Black suits are hard to mistake."

Yuffie could tell him her occupation, which meant there was no real danger to mentioning it to him.

She didn't mention that she was retired. In his timeline, Turk retirement came with a body bag.

"I don't have anything against the Turks, you know," Zack replied, reaching back to rub at his neck. "We're all working for the same company, after all. Same mission objectives, right?"

"I have a big mouth," Elena said. Case in point: this conversation. "I say things when I shouldn't. I blurt out information to people who aren't cleared for it. I'm already in trouble with my boss over it. If I talk to you too long, I'll tell you things you shouldn't know and then, it'll be worse."

It was fascinating, how you could lie to someone just by selectively telling the truth.

"You'd think I would be the safest one here to talk to," Zack pointed out. "You've got no idea who else is sitting here, but I'm the other guy who works for ShinRa."

He gave her a careful kind of smile.

"I won't pry into whatever it is you're not allowed to say. As a matter of fact, if it sounds like you're even leaning into discussing company business, I'll let you know. How does that sound?"

It helped that she didn't know unpleasant details about anyone else's future. But she couldn't exactly say that, could she?

And damn it all, she was curious. Zack had been Tseng's one real friend, while a Turk. Cissnei had thought the world of him. She just wanted to know.

"So ... if I get in trouble with Tseng, you'll tell him to go easy on me?" she asked.

She was a Turk. She was supposed to do the job. She was doing very, very badly at that, right now.

She would still avoid him. She just ... wouldn't run away from him right now. That was all. Really.

Zack had no idea who this Tseng guy was, but it wasn't like that was going to stop him, here.

"If you get in trouble, I'll talk to whoever your Director is, and I'll straighten it out. Promise."

Cross his wee little snuggly heart and everything!

"You ... don't know Tseng?" Elena was going to stare for a few moments. "But I thought you were -- oh. You're --"

If she was from the future, then he was in the past. If he was friends with Tseng, then at some point, he had to have met Tseng, and this Zack was earlier than that. Logical. Straightforward.

It didn't seem right, that Zack looked blank at Tseng's name.

Elena facepalmed. "Shit. Shit. I'm doing it already."

She was doing it again. Saying things that didn't make the least bit of sense to Zack. She expected him to know someone, and she thought he was this, and that, and...

"You know who I am," he noted. "Which is weird, for a 2nd Class. We don't ever really get any recognition, nevermind among the Turks. There's that pride thing."

Okay, now was the perfect time to run, screaming. Before she made a mess into a clusterfuck.

"You ... don't know Tseng ... yet," Elena said, carefully. "This island ... this island likes to confuse people, and double back timelines onto themselves. I'm ... I'm not a Turk yet, in your world. I'm sort of ..."

From the future? Did that sound ominous and weird and completely mental?

"Oh!" Realization had dawned, and Zack was now wearing a silly, very relieved grin. "From the future! Like that Reno guy who graduated before I got here, right? I already know bits and chunks about the future, you know. I'm not really worried about you slipping or whatever."

.....

Shiva's frozen tits. He was a puppy. He wasn't worried about her slipping up. He knew about the future, or whatever. Couldn't be all that important, whatever he didn't know!

She absolutely could not do this to him. There was being a Turk, and then there was being a sadist. This was wrong, and cruel, and horrible.

"Like ... Reno, yes," she said, very, very carefully. "The ... future."

The future! Say, did he know about a town called Nibelheim? She had a feeling he didn't! Just a hunch!

He'd never heard of it! It would probably be for the best if he continued not hearing about it, so that he couldn't tell Cloud that he had heard of it, some time down the road!

Oh, what tangled webs we weave...

He relaxed a little, easing back to lean against a log from where he'd plopped down on the ground.

"I mean... I know about Midgar." He seemed less happy, talking about that. "Someone's already mentioned that part to me."

That snapped Elena to attention in a hurry.

"Who?" Elena asked, her eyes narrowing sharply. "And what is it they told you?"

No one should be telling Zack anything. Yuffie understood that, or Elena had thought she did. If she didn't, that was going to require a second conversation, one that was slightly more ... emphatic.

"Um." Okay, Zack had to kind of lean back a little, sort of taken aback at the snapping to attention and the narrowed eyes. "A friend of mine? Dinah. She mentioned that bad things happen in Midgar, things that can't really be avoided. She said that I make a difference, somehow. I don't think she really had all of the details, either."

He tapped his fingers together, frowning, and then he reached for a marshmallow. This was definite marshmallow conversation.

"Is she from Midgar?" Elena said, suspiciously. Dinah. She was going to remember that name. And find that person. And do whatever was necessary to keep that person from possibly destroying her world, through malice or stupidity.

What if someone had already told him about ... oh, fuck.

"Zack, listen to me. This is important. Just because she thinks she knows what happens, doesn't mean she does. It might not be the same Midgar. This island is a dimensional nexus, which means all sorts of different realities connect here. There could be some version of Gaia out there that never even had a city called Midgar, or where Wutai won the war, or where chocobos only come in the color purple. You can't let what might or might not happen to some other Midgar or some other you affect what decisions you make."

Especially not the decision to rescue Cloud. Please do not rethink that one, Zack? That one had the fate of an entire world hinging on it.

"Nah, she's from Earth somewhere, I'm pretty sure," Zack replied with a shrug. And then he swayed a little as he reached for a stick to throw a marshmallow onto.

Stabby! Stabby the marshmallow!

"So, ShinRa wins the war, huh?"

Zack Fair, totally missing the point, yes.

Elena closed her eyes for a long moment, and exhaled.

"You see?" she said. "You see why I can't talk to you?"

Zack gave his head a shake, sticking his marshmallow into the fire.

Where it promptly went up in flames. Oops.

He took a moment to pull it out again, and then blew on it until it was just a sticky, smoldering char.

"Don't worry about it. Really. I'm not the type to worry about what might happen, anyhow. Today is right here, I'm going to handle it while I still can."

He eyed the marshmallow critically for a moment, and then flicked off some ash and held it out toward her, smiling lightly.

"I never did catch your name, you know."

Edited 2009-07-08 00:39 (UTC)

"Elena," she said. "Of the Turks, but I'm trying to keep that part under wraps. Lots of people wouldn't be very happy about what we do."

She couldn't blame them. Murder, torture, espionage: all in a day's work.

"Well then, Elena," Zack said, nodding toward the marshmallow in-case she wanted it, "nobody has to find out."

He smiled, brightly. It was like the unpleasant undertones of the entire conversation had just wandered away.

"You'll find that people here tend to be a lot more accepting of others than they can be back home."

"Some things are hard to take," she said, taking the marshmallow hesitantly. It was too much like bonding, trusting, connecting. Things she should not be doing with Zack. "We're not ... like you, in SOLDIER, you know."

He was naive, and sweet, and possibly didn't realize exactly how dirty the dirty work could get.

Zack really didn't have any idea how dirty the dirty work could be, and it would be a few more months before he'd be able to form any mental image of it at all.

Zack was also infamously difficult to dissuade from a friendship. It worked nicely in his favor, sometimes.

"Well, we in SOLDIER get out there and do all of the big jobs," Zack noted, reaching for another marshmallow to stabbity on the end of his stick. Putting the marshmallow on the stick was probably his favorite part. "And I don't really know much about the Turks, honestly. But we're all ShinRa. If anyone has any problems with you, Elena, then they have problems with the both of us."

Elena popped the marshmallow into her mouth and chewed on it. It kept her from saying things she really shouldn't and absolutely couldn't. Chew. Chew. Chew. Swallow.

"Some day," she said softly, "when you find out more about the Turks, you might change your mind on that. I just wanted to tell you that it's okay, if you do. I won't hold it against you."

"You know," Zack mused, tilting his head as he stuck his marshmallow into the fire, "judging by how worried you seem about it, I think I already have a pretty decent idea what kind of person you are, job or none."

And really, he wasn't one to talk. He probably killed more people on a mission than most Turks did in ten.

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