And Perchance to Dream
Chapter 1 of 4
Chapter Rating: PG
Pairings: None.

Summary: A 14 year old Rufus in exile, Icicle Inn, and winter solstice.

I

Winter solstice. The longest night of the year.

And it had barely begun.

His breath misted momentarily against the window pane, obscuring the landscape beyond. This far north, the land was locked in the grips of winter, and an endless sea of snow cut them off from the rest of the world. Bright darkness, as far as the eye could see: moonlight or starlight hitting the snow and shattering into a million scattered beams. Cold. Black. Dead.

Some nights there were northern lights. The Aurorae Borealis that danced across the sky, and made it almost worthwhile to be here. Those nights he could almost smile, nose pressed against the glass as he struggled to get a better view from his window. Some nights he would open that window and lean all the way out, in a way he could never and would never dare to do if he were back in his Midgar office. And he would stay that way, feeling the winter winds bite into hands and face until all feeling was lost, until his eyes watered and the cold froze his breath and cut like a knife into his lungs. And amidst the emptiness and the glow above, he could almost forget Midgar.

“You Rufus?”

Rufus Shinra raised an eyebrow at the informal address, but continued staring out of the window. He missed Midgar. He missed the view of his city at night, illuminated by the green glare of mako reactors, when everything was reduced to a multitude of shimmering lights… it was like looking down and seeing a galaxy of stars.

“Well, you gotta be,” the unknown speaker said from behind him, and there was the sound of the door shutting as he moved further into the room.

Rufus figured that he should move. At least turn around and see who it was before the stranger put a bullet in his back. No point retrieving his shotgun; it was on the other side of the room. And the only Shinra employees that were out here were his handful of guards – gaolers, his mind supplied cynically – and he had long since come to recognize their voices. There were no meetings scheduled this late at night, and besides, the guards wouldn’t have let anyone past them without an announcement. Unless they were dead.

Which meant that whoever the intruder was… he was most certainly not dropping by for a friendly chat.

He placed a hand against the window pane, watching dispassionately as it leached all the heat from his fingers away. Miles and miles of snow, and Bone Village hours behind them by helicopter. The only civilization this tiny inn, and this was where his father sent him.

As far away as possible.

Well, no matter. It would be over soon. Assassinated on the longest night of the year. It was almost poetic. For in that sleep of death what dreams may come…

“You okay, kiddo?”

Rufus stiffened, removing his hand from the window and pulling his coat more tightly around himself. The room was cold, the heat either malfunctioning or insufficient to stave off the winter’s bite. Insufficient power in the absence of mako reactors, he thought, ironically. Although if those rumors are right, mako actually kills the planet…

Last breaths. The cold crystallizing down his windpipe. When we have shuffled off this mortal coil…

An explosion of impatience: the desire to get this over and done with. “Why should it matter to you?” he asked the intruder. “Hurry up and shoot. I don’t care.”

There was a sudden movement in the background, and despite himself, Rufus tensed. And jumped when an arm wrapped itself around his shoulders instead of the expected bullet digging into his back. He glanced up in shock, instinctively moving to shove the offending limb away, when fingers curled in and anchored themselves in his arm, refusing to be budged.

“I’m not here to kill you, kiddo. Relax.”

Must give us pause.

He didn’t recognize the person who had so rudely invaded his sanctuary and personal space. Moonlight reflected off snow showed him a sharp profile, almost too delicate to belong to a man. Long unkempt red hair took on the sheen of dried blood in the near dark, and a pair of eyes flecked with the turquoise glow of mako caught and held his.

“Who are you?” Rufus demanded. The man’s black winter coat was wet with snow melt, and Rufus noted the trail of water and mud he had tracked into the room. “And kindly remove your arm.”

“You should’ve asked for introductions first. Besides, it’s bad form to just let someone shoot you like that,” the man continued jovially. Rufus decided that he was getting annoying. He raised his right hand to the hand gripping his arm, brushed across the wrist, and applied pressure just there—

--the man let go instantly, yelping and shaking out his hand, which was probably going numb already. “Whoa, kid. You musta learnt that from Tseng. Remind me to kick his ass, the bastard.”

Rufus raised an eyebrow and stepped away, brushing off the sleeve of his jacket. “I asked you a question.”

“So you did.” The man shook his hand again and stuffed it into a pocket. “They call me Reno at work.”

“Reno.” Rufus narrowed his eyes. “Did you have an appointment?”

Reno blinked, then exhaled his breath noisily in a sigh. “You’re a strange one. Is work the only thing you ever think of?” He held up a hand as Rufus’ expression turned stormy. “Woah. Relax. You mean Tseng didn’t tell you I was coming?”

“We,” and Rufus could feel the irritation boiling up through sheer reflex at the mere thought, “were stuck without communications for the past two weeks. They still haven’t brought it up.” Caught in a blizzard out in the middle of nowhere with all signals down. Could have been lethal. Sometimes I wish it had been lethal. “Are you a courier?”

Reno bowed extravagantly. “Yep. Glorified courier. That’s me.” He reached in his coat, pulling out several envelopes. “Dispatches from HQ.”

Rufus did not take the proffered handful. “I don’t have any dispatches.”

The man – no, the teenager… Reno couldn’t have been much older than himself – looked momentarily surprised. “Your old man doesn’t send you anything? Thought you were the Vice Prez and all that.”

“No,” Rufus said, his voice deceptively even. “He doesn’t.”

Reno shrugged. “Anyway, these are from Tseng.”

“Tseng—“ a sudden suspicion hit him. “Show me your ID.”

It took a lot of fumbling and searching in various pockets before the requested identification card was produced, during which Reno had to unbutton his coat to reveal a rumpled black two piece suit, sans tie. Rufus glanced at the thin sheet of plastic emblazoned with the Shinra Company logo.

“A Turk.” I thought so.

Reno grinned. “Just got my wings last week. And Tseng thought it would be fun to send me off on a glorified mail run.” He shivered, buttoning the coat again. “And damn, it’s freezing up here. Whatcha old man send you here for, anyway? He’s thinking of building a reactor here?”

Rufus finally deigned to accept the letters from Reno. He moved across the room, casually retrieving the shotgun and switching on the lights before collapsing into an armchair. “To rot. Or freeze,” he replied, tearing open the envelopes. They were soggy.

“I thought you were supposed to be on a business trip.” Seeing no other available chair in the room, Reno took the bed.

Rufus shot him a brittle smile, but did not reply. Now, only now did it hit him – correspondence from Tseng. 2 years since he had seen the man, 2 years of exile from Midgar, and this only about the second or third time he had received anything from him…

The contents of the letter were dry, professional, reading like a report delivered to a superior, a Turk to his Vice President. Typical Tseng. It talked about the Turks, namely one Reno Last-Name-Unknown, and how Avalanche was becoming more than merely a minor nuisance, how investigations into the group’s activities was proceeding, about minor clashes in Wutai… and one line, right at the end, that sent a sharp pang of pain lancing through him: The Icicle Area is cold at this time of the year. Take care of yourself.

He stared at that line in silence, lost in thought.

End Part 1 of 4.

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