Room 206 and back to Room 429: HOLY CRAP KIDS
It was still early when Rikku slipped out of bed. She needed to check on Valentine. She thought about leaving Reno with a quick kiss and not waking him up, but ... uh. If Valentine came back with her, for some reason, that might be ... weird?
He didn't really appreciate being woken up just to be told to put pants on, but he'd get over it.
She knocked on Valentine's door, frowning at it. Still not awake, dammit.
Payido was on the prowl. She knew Mommy and Daddy had to be somewhere around here; they had just gotten lost again.
Big people were silly.
Fiiiiiiinally, she almost bumped into a familiar blonde figure. "Mommy! I was lookin' everywhere!"
"Whoa, look out!" Rikku giggled. Then her brain caught up to her ears, and her heart stopped. Mommy? Blonde hair and --
She knelt down. Not Bayla, her face was different, all of her was different, but ... one blue eye, one green. And bits of her face seemed oddly familiar.
After not-prom, last year. And last night was prom. Rikku swallowed, hard, and wondered how to ask your daughter politely what her own name was.
"Hello, sweetheart," she smiled, heart melting into a puddle. "Just wandered off again. Did I scare you?"
"Nuh-uh!" Payido said proudly. "I jus' got here and I didn't see you guys so I thought maybe you were out makin' something."
She eyed her mother speculatively. "If you are, can I watch?"
"Cross my heart," Rikku said. "Nope, I was just stopping here to see a friend of mine, but I think he's out."
Oh. Crap. Now she'd have to do some fast tapdancing if her father was Valentine.
... her father wouldn't be Valentine, would he? That was ... really weird to think about.
"Maybe we can all make something later, if you promise you'll be super-careful. What would you wanna make, if you could pick anything at all?"
Explosives? Mech droids? A low-budget horror film? This would help narrow things down.
Payido considered it, narrowing her eyes. Anything?
"'Splodey things," she finally decided. "But pretty ones. Like, with pink smoke or something. Or, ooh, c'n we paint the outsides?"
"We absolutely can," Rikku said. She realized she was fighting off the urge to give the girl a long, squeezy hug. And also realized that was stupid, it was her daughter and Mommy hugs were totally freaking allowed. "Any color you like, sweetie."
Splodey things meant not Valentine, and probably not Jude since she wasn't Bayla. Not Gippal since she had mismatched eyes and ... she didn't feel like Reno's kid, somehow, either. Too sane, maybe. She'd figure the father out somehow. What mattered most was that she was hers.
Payido smiled and reached into Rikku's hug. Sometimes Mommy just liked to squeeze her like this, for no reason, and it was okay -- she kind of liked it, in fact.
"And then can we go to the beach?" she wanted to know. "It's almost warm enough to swim, and I know Daddy will go."
"That sounds awesome," Rikku said, letting go and reaching up to brush the girl's hair away from her face. And it did. "Hey, sweetie, did Mommy ever tell you she used to go to school here?"
Daddy, too, probably, but let's start at the beginning.
Oh, jeesh, Mommy was being all mushy again. "Uh-huh," Payido said, wondering where this was going. She decided to help Mommy along:
"You an' Daddy an' Uncle Reno were all in the same class, an' you went to Mexico together, an' that's how come we live there now. Also 'cause you guys hate being cold."
Her, Daddy and Uncle Reno ... in Mexico. Getting tattoos and oh, Dojima was gonna kill her.
"I bet you hear about that trip a lot," she grinned. "Do you like living in Mexico? Does everyone call you Senorita Montague?"
There was a horrible fake-Spanish accent to go with that. And maybe she'd give her first name instead. Or maybe in her world they'd gone with someone else entirely to Mexico and ... no, she had something of Romeo in the face. So at least the Montague bit was safe.
"Mommy!" Payido laughed. "You knooooow I like Mexico, the beaches are muy bonita, an' you and Daddy make people call me Payido 'stead of Senorita."
She added thoughtfully, "I like visiting Spira, too."
"Of course we do," she said, her heart giving a tug. "You're very payidevim, so everyone should call you Payido."
Bayla's name meant peace, in Al Bhed, and she and Romeo had called this one Beauty. Payido Montague, living on those beaches with Mommy and Romeo -- Daddy -- and ... it sounded beautiful right then, didn't it?
She hugged Payido again fiercely before standing up. "What do you say we go hunt down your dad, and make him take us all out for breakfast? I bet Uncle Reno knows where he is."
Wow, was she glad she'd made Reno put pants on, this morning. That would be ... okay, explaining this to Reno was ... the hell with it, she'd figure it out when she got there.
She held out a hand, hoping Payido wasn't too old to scoff at walking hand-in-hand with her mom. "So where in Spira do you like best? The desert where Mommy grew up? The blitzball games, in Luca? Or all those pretty blue trees in Macalania?"
"Okay!" Payido chirped, taking the offered hand. Breakfast, then helping mommy invent, then the beach. This was pretty much a perfect day for her.
She swung Mommy's hand as they walked down the hall. "Pretty blue trees," she said without hesitation. "But I like visiting Uncle Brother too, and Auntie Yunie is awesome."
There was sleeping to be done. It was important sleeping, involving a bed and a pillow and that annoying freaking sun creeping in through the window.
If Reno ever had his say, the sun would be outlawed until just after noon, dammit. Cover up the whole sky until lunchtime, when he could haul himself out of bed and say, "okay, bring out the sun," and that would be that.
He pulled the pillow over his head and grumbled into it, trying to get back to sleep.
It was early 'n Ruba didn't know where she was. But she knew her daddy was in here. And her mommy had forgotted to lock the door when she left.
So Ruba opened the door and tiptoed in. Oh, Daddy was asleep! So she crawled over him and snuggled in. They didn't have to wake up yet, nope nope.
Sleep was almost there. So close. So close. Just a little more haze and another good bout of attempting to drift off, and mission: ignore the freaking sun and get back to sleep already-- it would be a success.
Someone was crawling into bed with him, now. And was snuggling up against him. And it wasn't bad, really, except that it was far too short to possibly be Rikku.
The sleep fog helped, somewhat, in that the removal of the pillow in order to get a look at the cuddly-thing was sluggish and curious, as opposed to panicked and dangerous.
There was a good deal of red hair that he could see without shifting about too much. Huh. Okay.
Wait...
"G'mooooorning," she said, wriggling in. "Where's Mommy?"
It wasn't a really good cuddle pile without both Mommy and Daddy.
"Where's Mommy?"
The hell? The hell the hell the hell? "Where's Daddy?"
What was the wriggly thing doing in his bed?
"Daddy's right here," Ruba giggled, wrapping her arms around his waist and squeezing. This must be a new game! "Where's Ruba?"
Okay. He was daddy. Apparently he was daddy? And the kid was Ruba.
And now Reno was informing himself that breathing was good. Very good. And he was going over a very long list of faces he hadn't bothered to get names for in his head. And wondering how the hell they had managed to find him here at Fandom. And wondering even moreso how the hell they knew who the hell he was and-
The hell the hell the hell the hell the hell--
"Ruba is... Right here?"
He was going to freak in a moment. A lot. Because apparently he'd managed to knock up some chick who actually knew who he was and sent the kid to HIS ROOM to pass her off on him and his head hurt.
"Yup!" Ruba bounced excitedly. "Where's Mommy? 'Cept she's not here, for real."
"Somewhere else?"
He had no idea where Mommy was! He didn't even know who Mommy was! Mommy could be any one of a hell of a lot of one-night-flings!
"She's not here. So she's gotta be someplace else."
And here was where he had to ask. It was necessary. "Who is your mom?"
"Mommy," Ruba answered. Duh. "You're being weird, Daddy."
Right. Okay. Mommy was clearly Mommy.
"She didn't leave a note or anything?"
A nice little, 'here's the kid, don't forget to feed her' sort of thing would have been appreciated, here. A lot. That was the procedure for dumping your kid onto an unsuspecting parent. Really. It wouldn't have killed this girl's mom to give him something to work with, here.
And then he'd have been able to get someone to analyze that handwriting so he could HUNT THE BITCH DOWN.
Ruba lifted a shoulder. "Maybe she had to go make breakfast." She frowned. "Mommy's omelettes are weeeeeeeird."
Mommy got bored while cooking omelettes, and threw in ... just about anything.
"Weeeeeeird?" Reno sat up- and oh thank fuck was he ever thankful that Rikku had made him pull on pants earlier. "It's... breakfast time, huh?"
...
Kid was his. Kid was hungry. Okay. Feeding the kid, he could manage. The fact that the kid's mom had dumped her off here without so much as a note, and Ruba here seemed totally freaking oblivious to the fact that her mom... probably wasn't coming back for her? That had him furious.
He was doing an admirable job swallowing it down, though. He'd throw things later. When the kid was fed and asleep or something.
"Yup-yup," Ruba declared, completely oblivious to Reno's mood. She stood up and began bouncing on the bed. "We should go get her! 'N then? We can all have breakfast!!"
... It was bouncy.
The kid. That was... apparently his kid. Was bouncy. Very.
It was making Reno dizzy. Or maybe that was the fact that it was finally sinking in that he was stuck with a child.
Possibly for the rest of his life.
....
She was damn cute, though.
"That sounds like a plan, yo."
Go out. Wander around. Pretend that her mom was ever coming back for a bit, and then just give up and get waffles or something. That was the best plan that Reno could come up with.
Ruba bounced out of the bed and grabbed Reno's arm. "Then c'mooooooon, Daddy! We gots to find her now! Suja, suja!"
Could he move his butt already?!
"Yeah, yeah I'm co-"
Wait a moment.
Suja? That was... Al Bhed. Come to think of it, so was the kid's name, wasn't it? Ruba. It was, uh. It took Reno a moment to think on it. Hope, or something? Yeah. Ruba was Hope. And... he hadn't met any Al Bhed chicks back on Gaia, so far as he knew. So this little hyper spitfire was...
....
"Oh, son-of-a-bandersnatch."
"You're not coming," Ruba said, folding her arms and glaring at him with mismatched eyes. One had a strangely mako-ish tint. The other was bright green. Both of them were, with the rest of her face, halfway to a pout.
"I'm coming!"
See, see how he was coming? Little mismatched eyes and that pout of hers and Reno's guts just did the twist-and-shout inside of him. If he was being pouted at like that because he was being an idiot and couldn't get his head around-- whatever the hell this was? Then he totally ought to be reaching for his shirt so that he could come along.
Totally coming.
Rikku knocked on the door of 429. Because sauntering in to see a half-dressed Reno was probably a bad idea. Um. Right? Especially if she didn't want future-her to get divorced. And she didn't.
"Hey, Reno?" she called. "You in there?"
I have to ask, because I totally didn't spend the night. Much. I do not want to get divorced.
Reno was about two steps from the door when he heard the knock. And he looked at Ruba. And he looked at the door.
And the hesitation ended right about there, because if this was Rikku's kid, too- and there was no doubt in his mind that it was- then she was going to have to find out, anyhow.
He cracked open the door.
"Totally in here, zoto. And. Uh. I got company."
"Me too," Rikku said. "Payido's here? She wanted to ... stop in and ... say hi to Uncle Reno. Before we go find .... Daddy."
These were all normal sentences. Really. A lot. See?
Oh. Uncle Reno. And there was a daddy. Okay.
This was going to be one of Those Weekends, wasn't it?
"Oh. Good. Payido." Reno looked over his shoulder at Ruba, and then opened the door the rest of the way. "Ruba's here, too. We were just headin' out to find you, Mommy."
Payido gave a friendly smile. "Hi Uncle Reno!" she said, giving a curious glance to the smaller girl. "Mommy said Daddy would take us to breakfast an' then I can watch her build stuff an' then we can go to the beach."
"Mommy?" she said softly, following him into the room and there were another pair of mismatched eyes staring up at her, and curly red hair tackling her knees, and ... she scooped up Ruba instinctively. Ruba? She flicked a glance over to Reno. Curly red hair and a mischevious grin and ... she tried to read his expression. And ask him the one vital question. Ours?
"Hi, Ruba," she said, giving her a kiss and nuzzling her. Hers. Just like Payido. Her heart was breaking into a hundred little pieces and forming back together again.
"Payido? Did Mommy and Daddy ever tell you that ... Fandom got ... weird sometimes?"
Ours.
He didn't know that he should be saying it aloud. Not while ... uh. Niece Payido was there. But the 'Fandom gets weird' speech was potentially amazing. He could very well casually clarify that Ruba was theirs at any moment.
It wouldn't be casual, though. Ruba was one hell of a kid, all curls and raspberries and mismatched eyes and smiles.
It would be-- Wow. It already was wow. But it would be more wow.
"Fandom gets real weird," Reno agreed.
"I know that," Payido said, rolling her eyes. And, well, truthfully she didn't believe most of it. She figured her parents were making up funny stories to tell. They were good stories, so she didn't mind.
Rikku thought for a minute, then nodded. "Okay. Reality gets a little bendy around the edges. Sometimes people leave and new people come and it's just a different version of the person again. And sometimes people come from the future, and the future's got a lot of different roads to it, you know? So you might meet some people this weekend that you don't know when you aren't here. Like a sister you don't usually have. She's just not in your same reality, that's all. That doesn't keep her from being your sister, does it?"
Let's skip past things like who's married to who somewhere else and focused on what mattered: getting all the half-siblings to play nicely.
Rikku, Reno noted after listening to the spiel intently, had clearly been through this before.
It was Fandom again. Right, then. Good old Fandom, hard at work, breaking brains and hearts. Or whatever. Perfectly natural, for this place, wasn't it? The insane and the impossible.
"One heck of a place," Reno agreed. "Think of it like a learning experience."
Or something.
On the one hand, this sounded weird and sort of crazy. On the other, it might be a neat game to play.
"I always wanted a sister," Payido said, considering the idea. "Is she gonna be mine, now?"
She could deal with that.
"Just for the weekend," Rikku said, nodding. "You might have more, too, we'll have to find them. It's like an adventure. If you want one all the time, you have to go back to Mexico and tell Daddy and me to step on it."
She looked over at Reno. Couldn't switch to Al Bhed to tell him things, not with the chance that both of them spoke it. So instead she licked her lips nervously and mouthed it.
Last year.
Reno's mouth formed a silent 'o' shape. Okay. One of those annual bouts of Fandom Island insanity. Which was why Rikku wasn't freaking out.
Good to know.
"Does her, uh, Daddy know that she's here, yet?"
Other things that would be good to know: Who this kid's father was, so that he didn't make a moron of himself in front of the kid.
"Not yet," Rikku said. Oh. She hadn't had a chance to ... right. Rikku placed a kiss to Ruba's forehead and looked back at Payido.
They'd been real for five minutes, they were going to complicate her life in crazy ways, and she wanted to keep both of them anyway. They could live in her dorm room and she'd get another job, dammit.
"We thought we'd find you first, and maybe you'd know where Daddy is. If not, we can ask Auntie Dojima, she might know." And hope they were both dressed, so Payido didn't get her parents a divorce when she got home.
Okay. Auntie Dojima. Someone who was male, and was familiar with the group, and-
Fandom was real, real weird. Was Fandom aware of that?
"Well, lucky for Payido, I probably know a few of ... Romeo's? ... favorite hangouts, zoto."
Maybe? Perhaps? Possibly?
There was a small redhead blocking the door.
A small, disgruntled redhead.
"Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!" Riina stomped her food and glared. "I'm hungry and I'm bored and I can't find anyone else anywhere, not even 'nuncle Ruuuude."
Oh fuck there was another on-
"Uncle Rude?"
Reno stared at the kid in the doorway. If Rude- even an alternate universe Rude- had any idea that he had kids somewhere and neglected to tell him about it, Reno was going to find him. And break his sunglasses over his head. Before or after killing him, he hadn't yet decided.
Riina bounced in place and nodded. "Mom said to ask 'nuncle Rude to take me to somewhere or something, 'cause I was giving her a headache, so I went looking for him, but I can't find him and I found you!"
Rikku was trying very, very hard not to laugh at Reno right now. And was surprised that there wasn't a conga line outside the door. The day was young, right?
"Good job, sweetie," she nodded. "Uncle Rude had to go ... do stuff."
For the Turks, she was gonna say, except maybe the kid didn't know about the Turk stuff? Uh. And maybe the kid was gonna wonder why there was some blonde girl in the room with her daddy. Rikku tried her best not to look like a homewrecker.
"It's all in the power of awesome," Riina said seriously, striking a super-star pose. "I can do anything. Everyone says so."
Rikku posed back. "Nifty trick," she said.
Totally Reno's kid. Very different, yeah, but the ego was intact.
"Thanks," Riina grinned up at Rikku before looking over at Reno. "Daaaaaaaaaad, I wanna do something fun! Can we go outside, please? Pretty please? And find some animals or something?"
Reno stared.
There was no way that this was his kid.
Well. Sure there was. This was Fandom, after all. But it was nice to swim the river of denial now and again.
"We were just headin' out, uh." He eyed the kid. "You gonna introduce yourself? To. Um." He motioned to the small menagerie in the room. Making the kids do the introduction thing would spare him the trouble of having to ask who the heck she was.
"Haaaaaaaaaaaiiiii," was the bored answer, and she eyed the other kids warily as she sketched a quick bow. "Riina Dojima, at your service. Dou Genki?"
"NOW can we go?"
....
Reno buried his face in his hand. That wasn't a whimper sound that he made, there. Not at all.
Much.
"Yeah. We'd better add your mom to the list of people we gotta find, Riina," he mumbled into his palm.
What a day.
"You lost Mom?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips. "You're gonna be in trouble!"
"Yep," Reno agreed, pushing his way out into the hallway. "She's gonna kill me."
And most likely not at all for the reason that little Riina here was thinking. "Let's go."
And so, off they were, on their merry way out of the dorms and into the great beyond. Off to find Dojima and Romeo and hopefully to figure out what in the world was going on with these children.
"Okay. So. First, we find Romeo and Doji. And then we get food. Because kids gotta eat, dammit. And then we figure out what the hell we're gonna do from there? Sound like a plan?"
"Turtle and Canary's," Rikku said promptly. "They have baby stuff there, they'll totally have things you need for bigger kids."
She stopped abruptly, hitching Ruba higher on her hip and looking over at Reno. "Cable. Uh. Has a baby. At work. So I went shopping."
Reno raised an eyebrow and smirked at that.
"Okay. Because if I thought you might'a been plannin' for this, I might've had to get worried or somethin', yo."
"Things will be back to normal soon," she said carefully. Meaning the kids would disappear, heading back to their separate realities and worlds and lives, but hopefully said carefully enough that they didn't catch on. "Except ... they're never gonna be the same. Not really."
It hadn't been last time, either.
A little figure in the bushes was listening. Intently. And watching all these people as they walked by.
One of them, he'd noticed, was wearing a Turks uniform. That on its own made watching into something he simply had to do. He'd never seen a real live Turk at work before.
Maybe he would learn something.
He followed along after them from a distance.
Sometimes, a distance just wasn't far enough.
Reno was about half a breath into a reply to Rikku when he stopped short, forgetting what he was going to say entirely. He looked at Rikku, furrowing his eyebrows.
"We're bein' followed," he said, his voice dropping down to the faintest murmur. "Watch the kids."
He was allowed to be a little paranoid. Honestly.
It felt like lead, dragging her stomach down. Followed? If something breathed funny on her daughters, it was going to have trouble finding its own trachea later. And that went for Riina, too.
"Hey, guys, so where are we gonna go for that breakfast?" Rikku asked, trying to sound natural. "There are lots of places in town, we'd better pick before we get there."
Reno gave a bit of a nod.
"You guys decide what to eat, zoto. I gotta go take a leak."
It was a totally valid excuse to duck out of sight, anyhow. To make a wide berth around the area, some up behind the person hiding in the bushes, and grab him by the arm, yanking him rudely to his feet.
"Okay, you puny little motherfu-- kid."
...
They were being spied on by a kid. This could be problematic.
Without even bothering with an apology or another word, Reno had started to drag the boy out from his hiding place in the bushes, off toward the group.
It was all the boy could do to keep up, tripping along after him.
"Careful!" Rikku said, darting forward. "He's just a --"
Kid, wearing a suit and spying on them from behind the bushes?
"I think this one's yours, too," she said. But there was a strange note of uncertainy hiding under the surface. Reno's kid wouldn't look this waxy or underfed. Not if Reno were breathing.
Rikku set Ruba down carefully and knelt down in front of the boy. "What's your name, sweetie?"
Reno let go of the boy's arm, raised an eyebrow, and took a step back.
Kid better make it good. Because spying was a good way to tick off a Turk.
The boy shrank away from Reno's hand the moment his arm was freed, his eyes finding the face of the nice lady who was asking his name.
He straightened up slightly, squaring his shoulders and taking a deep breath before he spoke.
"Turk Clone 32, miss," he recited. "I was a success."
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he winced again. Just a little this time.
He was handing out classified information to a stranger.
Rikku flinched for entirely different reasons, eyes seeking out Reno's. Turk ... clone!? The more she heard about his stupid bullshit company, the more she hated it. He was kidding. Right?
He did not look like the sort of kid who cracked a lot of jokes.
Even Reno had to stop and stare, at that one.
Clone? Of ... obviously not just him. The kid probably had some other blood in him somewhere. But this meant that someone had made a kid. Using his blood. Because maybe it was funny or something, somewhere.
Reno wasn't laughing.
"Clone?" He raised an eyebrow. "Of?"
Clone 32 was torn between attempting to run again, and answering the question. He was, after all, being asked by a senior member of the Turks. Whoever this person was, he outranked him.
By far.
"I was created in Hojo's lab using DNA samples provided by the Turks given the official names, Rude and Reno."
A question was an order, right? ... Then why did the Turk who asked the question look like he was going to be ill, right then?
32 was confused.
"Hojo."
It was not a question. It was barely a thought. It was a swear-word. It was a million promises to hunt down a freaking body just to bring it back and kill it again. It was his blood reaching a boiling point, and he was letting off steam or else he'd blow up.
"Hojo gave you a real shitty name, kid."
It was that, if he was number 32, what kind of twisted shit happened to the other 31?
Rikku was not going to be sick, because the little boy would probably misunderstand and might think it was meant somehow against him. Therefore Rikku was not going to be sick.
Rikku was not going to hug him so tightly that she crushed all of his ribs, because the little boy was probably not used to that sort of thing and might panic. Therefore Rikku was not going to hug him.
She cleared her throat. "O-o-okay, that's your ... official name, kiddo, but what do they ... call you?"
Oh please tell her that they had a nickname for him?
"Call me?"
Turk Clone 32 was even more confused, now. "They call me Turk Clone 32. I'm a prototype. The objective of the experiment that created me was to take the most useful traits of the Turks, and then breed them together to create a Turk with unquestionable loyalty to the company."
He didn't know what most of the words he just said actually meant. Which might explain why he sounded more like a kid nervously rehearsing lines for an audience, right then.
Rikku was not going to burn ShinRa to the ground, because that would mean she couldn't dive forward and squeeze the boy hard enough to crush his ribs. The hell with whether or not he panicked.
She was not going to fucking call him Turk Clone 32 for a weekend and how dare that monster grow little kids in vats and okay, no burning ShinRa to the ground, that would mean letting go.
That's when inspiration struck her full force between the eyes. Please, please, please let her be right on this one ...
"But ... you're a Turk, aren't you?" Rikku said, as if the implications of that were obvious. he sounded so proud when he said he was a success, and Reno always stood a little straighter when he said Turk, and ...
She looked over at Reno, hoping he'd catch on, and back to the boy again. "Turks always get new names."
Reno had to take another moment to swallow down rage. But he was listening.
He nodded. And took in a slow, deep breath. And paused to visualize someone slamming Hojo's oversized forehead into a wall.
And then he felt better.
"We do," he agreed. "Before we even go on our first assignments, zoto. All Turks get a new name."
"I was told I was gonna have to earn it," 32 replied, looking even more confused. "If I continued to be a success, then I would Join The Turks and then I'd get a name."
He frowned a little.
"I was caught." He rubbed at his arm to demonstrate. No good Turk would be found out so easily.
Reno was going to kill things and they were going to die and he'd light them on fire and dance in the embers and piss on the ashes and-
"You impressed me, kid. The only reason I caught you was because I'm better than you. One of the bonuses of bein' an experienced Turk. You learn, zoto."
He tilted his head, appraisingly.
"Bein' the second-in-command of the Turks, and the only one on the island right here, means I get to promote you at will. Nobody else found you. You got what it takes. Welcome to the Turks."
Now take a real goddamn name.
Turk Clone 32 stared for a moment, wide-eyed. A promotion? To the Turks? Right here and now, just like that? And that meant that he could pick a name and never have to go back to the facility or see Hojo or be poked at again, right? He could be a real Turk and go on missions and be a useful part of ShinRa?
He straightened up, standing at attention, and he opened his mouth to speak. A name. He gets a name. He doesn't get to be a Turk until he finds a name.
"Sir, I-" ... A... name? "- don't... know what to... Call myself."
Please, please don't demote him again and send him back, please?
Oh, good. There went her heart, ripped out and still bleeding right there on the floor. Who needed one?
Pick something. Pick anything. You can be Bob or Eigaar or Lucinda or Prancibald or --
"Rede," she said, voice much calmer than anything she felt. "Your name is Rede."
Reno. Rude. Nice and simple and hey, it wasn't like they didn't have enough R-names already.
"Rede?" He looked again at the lady. Rede.
...
"My name is Rede," he agreed, and his shoulders went a little straighter, and maybe that was a smile on his lips. Maybe that moment right there reminded Reno of Rude. And of himself.
Turk Pride.
Very good. The kid had a name. Not that stupid number that Hojo liked to slap onto everything he touched.
The kid wasn't a number. He was a Turk.
"Welcome to the Turks, Rede."
He paused, looked around at the ragtag band of children that they were collecting, and then at Rikku.
"Romeo. And Dojima. And then breakfast. On me."
(OOC: Oooooohkay! Preplayed with the fabulous wee_beauty, raspberryturk, startswithanr, singsanddances, and weetinyturk, and thanks to sarcasm_guy who coded some of this beast. The roving menagerie is NFI, please, but broadcast is a-okay and OOC is love.)
He didn't really appreciate being woken up just to be told to put pants on, but he'd get over it.
She knocked on Valentine's door, frowning at it. Still not awake, dammit.
Payido was on the prowl. She knew Mommy and Daddy had to be somewhere around here; they had just gotten lost again.
Big people were silly.
Fiiiiiiinally, she almost bumped into a familiar blonde figure. "Mommy! I was lookin' everywhere!"
"Whoa, look out!" Rikku giggled. Then her brain caught up to her ears, and her heart stopped. Mommy? Blonde hair and --
She knelt down. Not Bayla, her face was different, all of her was different, but ... one blue eye, one green. And bits of her face seemed oddly familiar.
After not-prom, last year. And last night was prom. Rikku swallowed, hard, and wondered how to ask your daughter politely what her own name was.
"Hello, sweetheart," she smiled, heart melting into a puddle. "Just wandered off again. Did I scare you?"
"Nuh-uh!" Payido said proudly. "I jus' got here and I didn't see you guys so I thought maybe you were out makin' something."
She eyed her mother speculatively. "If you are, can I watch?"
"Cross my heart," Rikku said. "Nope, I was just stopping here to see a friend of mine, but I think he's out."
Oh. Crap. Now she'd have to do some fast tapdancing if her father was Valentine.
... her father wouldn't be Valentine, would he? That was ... really weird to think about.
"Maybe we can all make something later, if you promise you'll be super-careful. What would you wanna make, if you could pick anything at all?"
Explosives? Mech droids? A low-budget horror film? This would help narrow things down.
Payido considered it, narrowing her eyes. Anything?
"'Splodey things," she finally decided. "But pretty ones. Like, with pink smoke or something. Or, ooh, c'n we paint the outsides?"
"We absolutely can," Rikku said. She realized she was fighting off the urge to give the girl a long, squeezy hug. And also realized that was stupid, it was her daughter and Mommy hugs were totally freaking allowed. "Any color you like, sweetie."
Splodey things meant not Valentine, and probably not Jude since she wasn't Bayla. Not Gippal since she had mismatched eyes and ... she didn't feel like Reno's kid, somehow, either. Too sane, maybe. She'd figure the father out somehow. What mattered most was that she was hers.
Payido smiled and reached into Rikku's hug. Sometimes Mommy just liked to squeeze her like this, for no reason, and it was okay -- she kind of liked it, in fact.
"And then can we go to the beach?" she wanted to know. "It's almost warm enough to swim, and I know Daddy will go."
"That sounds awesome," Rikku said, letting go and reaching up to brush the girl's hair away from her face. And it did. "Hey, sweetie, did Mommy ever tell you she used to go to school here?"
Daddy, too, probably, but let's start at the beginning.
Oh, jeesh, Mommy was being all mushy again. "Uh-huh," Payido said, wondering where this was going. She decided to help Mommy along:
"You an' Daddy an' Uncle Reno were all in the same class, an' you went to Mexico together, an' that's how come we live there now. Also 'cause you guys hate being cold."
Her, Daddy and Uncle Reno ... in Mexico. Getting tattoos and oh, Dojima was gonna kill her.
"I bet you hear about that trip a lot," she grinned. "Do you like living in Mexico? Does everyone call you Senorita Montague?"
There was a horrible fake-Spanish accent to go with that. And maybe she'd give her first name instead. Or maybe in her world they'd gone with someone else entirely to Mexico and ... no, she had something of Romeo in the face. So at least the Montague bit was safe.
"Mommy!" Payido laughed. "You knooooow I like Mexico, the beaches are muy bonita, an' you and Daddy make people call me Payido 'stead of Senorita."
She added thoughtfully, "I like visiting Spira, too."
"Of course we do," she said, her heart giving a tug. "You're very payidevim, so everyone should call you Payido."
Bayla's name meant peace, in Al Bhed, and she and Romeo had called this one Beauty. Payido Montague, living on those beaches with Mommy and Romeo -- Daddy -- and ... it sounded beautiful right then, didn't it?
She hugged Payido again fiercely before standing up. "What do you say we go hunt down your dad, and make him take us all out for breakfast? I bet Uncle Reno knows where he is."
Wow, was she glad she'd made Reno put pants on, this morning. That would be ... okay, explaining this to Reno was ... the hell with it, she'd figure it out when she got there.
She held out a hand, hoping Payido wasn't too old to scoff at walking hand-in-hand with her mom. "So where in Spira do you like best? The desert where Mommy grew up? The blitzball games, in Luca? Or all those pretty blue trees in Macalania?"
"Okay!" Payido chirped, taking the offered hand. Breakfast, then helping mommy invent, then the beach. This was pretty much a perfect day for her.
She swung Mommy's hand as they walked down the hall. "Pretty blue trees," she said without hesitation. "But I like visiting Uncle Brother too, and Auntie Yunie is awesome."
There was sleeping to be done. It was important sleeping, involving a bed and a pillow and that annoying freaking sun creeping in through the window.
If Reno ever had his say, the sun would be outlawed until just after noon, dammit. Cover up the whole sky until lunchtime, when he could haul himself out of bed and say, "okay, bring out the sun," and that would be that.
He pulled the pillow over his head and grumbled into it, trying to get back to sleep.
It was early 'n Ruba didn't know where she was. But she knew her daddy was in here. And her mommy had forgotted to lock the door when she left.
So Ruba opened the door and tiptoed in. Oh, Daddy was asleep! So she crawled over him and snuggled in. They didn't have to wake up yet, nope nope.
Sleep was almost there. So close. So close. Just a little more haze and another good bout of attempting to drift off, and mission: ignore the freaking sun and get back to sleep already-- it would be a success.
Someone was crawling into bed with him, now. And was snuggling up against him. And it wasn't bad, really, except that it was far too short to possibly be Rikku.
The sleep fog helped, somewhat, in that the removal of the pillow in order to get a look at the cuddly-thing was sluggish and curious, as opposed to panicked and dangerous.
There was a good deal of red hair that he could see without shifting about too much. Huh. Okay.
Wait...
"G'mooooorning," she said, wriggling in. "Where's Mommy?"
It wasn't a really good cuddle pile without both Mommy and Daddy.
"Where's Mommy?"
The hell? The hell the hell the hell? "Where's Daddy?"
What was the wriggly thing doing in his bed?
"Daddy's right here," Ruba giggled, wrapping her arms around his waist and squeezing. This must be a new game! "Where's Ruba?"
Okay. He was daddy. Apparently he was daddy? And the kid was Ruba.
And now Reno was informing himself that breathing was good. Very good. And he was going over a very long list of faces he hadn't bothered to get names for in his head. And wondering how the hell they had managed to find him here at Fandom. And wondering even moreso how the hell they knew who the hell he was and-
The hell the hell the hell the hell the hell--
"Ruba is... Right here?"
He was going to freak in a moment. A lot. Because apparently he'd managed to knock up some chick who actually knew who he was and sent the kid to HIS ROOM to pass her off on him and his head hurt.
"Yup!" Ruba bounced excitedly. "Where's Mommy? 'Cept she's not here, for real."
"Somewhere else?"
He had no idea where Mommy was! He didn't even know who Mommy was! Mommy could be any one of a hell of a lot of one-night-flings!
"She's not here. So she's gotta be someplace else."
And here was where he had to ask. It was necessary. "Who is your mom?"
"Mommy," Ruba answered. Duh. "You're being weird, Daddy."
Right. Okay. Mommy was clearly Mommy.
"She didn't leave a note or anything?"
A nice little, 'here's the kid, don't forget to feed her' sort of thing would have been appreciated, here. A lot. That was the procedure for dumping your kid onto an unsuspecting parent. Really. It wouldn't have killed this girl's mom to give him something to work with, here.
And then he'd have been able to get someone to analyze that handwriting so he could HUNT THE BITCH DOWN.
Ruba lifted a shoulder. "Maybe she had to go make breakfast." She frowned. "Mommy's omelettes are weeeeeeeird."
Mommy got bored while cooking omelettes, and threw in ... just about anything.
"Weeeeeeird?" Reno sat up- and oh thank fuck was he ever thankful that Rikku had made him pull on pants earlier. "It's... breakfast time, huh?"
...
Kid was his. Kid was hungry. Okay. Feeding the kid, he could manage. The fact that the kid's mom had dumped her off here without so much as a note, and Ruba here seemed totally freaking oblivious to the fact that her mom... probably wasn't coming back for her? That had him furious.
He was doing an admirable job swallowing it down, though. He'd throw things later. When the kid was fed and asleep or something.
"Yup-yup," Ruba declared, completely oblivious to Reno's mood. She stood up and began bouncing on the bed. "We should go get her! 'N then? We can all have breakfast!!"
... It was bouncy.
The kid. That was... apparently his kid. Was bouncy. Very.
It was making Reno dizzy. Or maybe that was the fact that it was finally sinking in that he was stuck with a child.
Possibly for the rest of his life.
....
She was damn cute, though.
"That sounds like a plan, yo."
Go out. Wander around. Pretend that her mom was ever coming back for a bit, and then just give up and get waffles or something. That was the best plan that Reno could come up with.
Ruba bounced out of the bed and grabbed Reno's arm. "Then c'mooooooon, Daddy! We gots to find her now! Suja, suja!"
Could he move his butt already?!
"Yeah, yeah I'm co-"
Wait a moment.
Suja? That was... Al Bhed. Come to think of it, so was the kid's name, wasn't it? Ruba. It was, uh. It took Reno a moment to think on it. Hope, or something? Yeah. Ruba was Hope. And... he hadn't met any Al Bhed chicks back on Gaia, so far as he knew. So this little hyper spitfire was...
....
"Oh, son-of-a-bandersnatch."
"You're not coming," Ruba said, folding her arms and glaring at him with mismatched eyes. One had a strangely mako-ish tint. The other was bright green. Both of them were, with the rest of her face, halfway to a pout.
"I'm coming!"
See, see how he was coming? Little mismatched eyes and that pout of hers and Reno's guts just did the twist-and-shout inside of him. If he was being pouted at like that because he was being an idiot and couldn't get his head around-- whatever the hell this was? Then he totally ought to be reaching for his shirt so that he could come along.
Totally coming.
Rikku knocked on the door of 429. Because sauntering in to see a half-dressed Reno was probably a bad idea. Um. Right? Especially if she didn't want future-her to get divorced. And she didn't.
"Hey, Reno?" she called. "You in there?"
I have to ask, because I totally didn't spend the night. Much. I do not want to get divorced.
Reno was about two steps from the door when he heard the knock. And he looked at Ruba. And he looked at the door.
And the hesitation ended right about there, because if this was Rikku's kid, too- and there was no doubt in his mind that it was- then she was going to have to find out, anyhow.
He cracked open the door.
"Totally in here, zoto. And. Uh. I got company."
"Me too," Rikku said. "Payido's here? She wanted to ... stop in and ... say hi to Uncle Reno. Before we go find .... Daddy."
These were all normal sentences. Really. A lot. See?
Oh. Uncle Reno. And there was a daddy. Okay.
This was going to be one of Those Weekends, wasn't it?
"Oh. Good. Payido." Reno looked over his shoulder at Ruba, and then opened the door the rest of the way. "Ruba's here, too. We were just headin' out to find you, Mommy."
Payido gave a friendly smile. "Hi Uncle Reno!" she said, giving a curious glance to the smaller girl. "Mommy said Daddy would take us to breakfast an' then I can watch her build stuff an' then we can go to the beach."
"Mommy?" she said softly, following him into the room and there were another pair of mismatched eyes staring up at her, and curly red hair tackling her knees, and ... she scooped up Ruba instinctively. Ruba? She flicked a glance over to Reno. Curly red hair and a mischevious grin and ... she tried to read his expression. And ask him the one vital question. Ours?
"Hi, Ruba," she said, giving her a kiss and nuzzling her. Hers. Just like Payido. Her heart was breaking into a hundred little pieces and forming back together again.
"Payido? Did Mommy and Daddy ever tell you that ... Fandom got ... weird sometimes?"
Ours.
He didn't know that he should be saying it aloud. Not while ... uh. Niece Payido was there. But the 'Fandom gets weird' speech was potentially amazing. He could very well casually clarify that Ruba was theirs at any moment.
It wouldn't be casual, though. Ruba was one hell of a kid, all curls and raspberries and mismatched eyes and smiles.
It would be-- Wow. It already was wow. But it would be more wow.
"Fandom gets real weird," Reno agreed.
"I know that," Payido said, rolling her eyes. And, well, truthfully she didn't believe most of it. She figured her parents were making up funny stories to tell. They were good stories, so she didn't mind.
Rikku thought for a minute, then nodded. "Okay. Reality gets a little bendy around the edges. Sometimes people leave and new people come and it's just a different version of the person again. And sometimes people come from the future, and the future's got a lot of different roads to it, you know? So you might meet some people this weekend that you don't know when you aren't here. Like a sister you don't usually have. She's just not in your same reality, that's all. That doesn't keep her from being your sister, does it?"
Let's skip past things like who's married to who somewhere else and focused on what mattered: getting all the half-siblings to play nicely.
Rikku, Reno noted after listening to the spiel intently, had clearly been through this before.
It was Fandom again. Right, then. Good old Fandom, hard at work, breaking brains and hearts. Or whatever. Perfectly natural, for this place, wasn't it? The insane and the impossible.
"One heck of a place," Reno agreed. "Think of it like a learning experience."
Or something.
On the one hand, this sounded weird and sort of crazy. On the other, it might be a neat game to play.
"I always wanted a sister," Payido said, considering the idea. "Is she gonna be mine, now?"
She could deal with that.
"Just for the weekend," Rikku said, nodding. "You might have more, too, we'll have to find them. It's like an adventure. If you want one all the time, you have to go back to Mexico and tell Daddy and me to step on it."
She looked over at Reno. Couldn't switch to Al Bhed to tell him things, not with the chance that both of them spoke it. So instead she licked her lips nervously and mouthed it.
Last year.
Reno's mouth formed a silent 'o' shape. Okay. One of those annual bouts of Fandom Island insanity. Which was why Rikku wasn't freaking out.
Good to know.
"Does her, uh, Daddy know that she's here, yet?"
Other things that would be good to know: Who this kid's father was, so that he didn't make a moron of himself in front of the kid.
"Not yet," Rikku said. Oh. She hadn't had a chance to ... right. Rikku placed a kiss to Ruba's forehead and looked back at Payido.
They'd been real for five minutes, they were going to complicate her life in crazy ways, and she wanted to keep both of them anyway. They could live in her dorm room and she'd get another job, dammit.
"We thought we'd find you first, and maybe you'd know where Daddy is. If not, we can ask Auntie Dojima, she might know." And hope they were both dressed, so Payido didn't get her parents a divorce when she got home.
Okay. Auntie Dojima. Someone who was male, and was familiar with the group, and-
Fandom was real, real weird. Was Fandom aware of that?
"Well, lucky for Payido, I probably know a few of ... Romeo's? ... favorite hangouts, zoto."
Maybe? Perhaps? Possibly?
There was a small redhead blocking the door.
A small, disgruntled redhead.
"Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!" Riina stomped her food and glared. "I'm hungry and I'm bored and I can't find anyone else anywhere, not even 'nuncle Ruuuude."
Oh fuck there was another on-
"Uncle Rude?"
Reno stared at the kid in the doorway. If Rude- even an alternate universe Rude- had any idea that he had kids somewhere and neglected to tell him about it, Reno was going to find him. And break his sunglasses over his head. Before or after killing him, he hadn't yet decided.
Riina bounced in place and nodded. "Mom said to ask 'nuncle Rude to take me to somewhere or something, 'cause I was giving her a headache, so I went looking for him, but I can't find him and I found you!"
Rikku was trying very, very hard not to laugh at Reno right now. And was surprised that there wasn't a conga line outside the door. The day was young, right?
"Good job, sweetie," she nodded. "Uncle Rude had to go ... do stuff."
For the Turks, she was gonna say, except maybe the kid didn't know about the Turk stuff? Uh. And maybe the kid was gonna wonder why there was some blonde girl in the room with her daddy. Rikku tried her best not to look like a homewrecker.
"It's all in the power of awesome," Riina said seriously, striking a super-star pose. "I can do anything. Everyone says so."
Rikku posed back. "Nifty trick," she said.
Totally Reno's kid. Very different, yeah, but the ego was intact.
"Thanks," Riina grinned up at Rikku before looking over at Reno. "Daaaaaaaaaad, I wanna do something fun! Can we go outside, please? Pretty please? And find some animals or something?"
Reno stared.
There was no way that this was his kid.
Well. Sure there was. This was Fandom, after all. But it was nice to swim the river of denial now and again.
"We were just headin' out, uh." He eyed the kid. "You gonna introduce yourself? To. Um." He motioned to the small menagerie in the room. Making the kids do the introduction thing would spare him the trouble of having to ask who the heck she was.
"Haaaaaaaaaaaiiiii," was the bored answer, and she eyed the other kids warily as she sketched a quick bow. "Riina Dojima, at your service. Dou Genki?"
"NOW can we go?"
....
Reno buried his face in his hand. That wasn't a whimper sound that he made, there. Not at all.
Much.
"Yeah. We'd better add your mom to the list of people we gotta find, Riina," he mumbled into his palm.
What a day.
"You lost Mom?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips. "You're gonna be in trouble!"
"Yep," Reno agreed, pushing his way out into the hallway. "She's gonna kill me."
And most likely not at all for the reason that little Riina here was thinking. "Let's go."
And so, off they were, on their merry way out of the dorms and into the great beyond. Off to find Dojima and Romeo and hopefully to figure out what in the world was going on with these children.
"Okay. So. First, we find Romeo and Doji. And then we get food. Because kids gotta eat, dammit. And then we figure out what the hell we're gonna do from there? Sound like a plan?"
"Turtle and Canary's," Rikku said promptly. "They have baby stuff there, they'll totally have things you need for bigger kids."
She stopped abruptly, hitching Ruba higher on her hip and looking over at Reno. "Cable. Uh. Has a baby. At work. So I went shopping."
Reno raised an eyebrow and smirked at that.
"Okay. Because if I thought you might'a been plannin' for this, I might've had to get worried or somethin', yo."
"Things will be back to normal soon," she said carefully. Meaning the kids would disappear, heading back to their separate realities and worlds and lives, but hopefully said carefully enough that they didn't catch on. "Except ... they're never gonna be the same. Not really."
It hadn't been last time, either.
A little figure in the bushes was listening. Intently. And watching all these people as they walked by.
One of them, he'd noticed, was wearing a Turks uniform. That on its own made watching into something he simply had to do. He'd never seen a real live Turk at work before.
Maybe he would learn something.
He followed along after them from a distance.
Sometimes, a distance just wasn't far enough.
Reno was about half a breath into a reply to Rikku when he stopped short, forgetting what he was going to say entirely. He looked at Rikku, furrowing his eyebrows.
"We're bein' followed," he said, his voice dropping down to the faintest murmur. "Watch the kids."
He was allowed to be a little paranoid. Honestly.
It felt like lead, dragging her stomach down. Followed? If something breathed funny on her daughters, it was going to have trouble finding its own trachea later. And that went for Riina, too.
"Hey, guys, so where are we gonna go for that breakfast?" Rikku asked, trying to sound natural. "There are lots of places in town, we'd better pick before we get there."
Reno gave a bit of a nod.
"You guys decide what to eat, zoto. I gotta go take a leak."
It was a totally valid excuse to duck out of sight, anyhow. To make a wide berth around the area, some up behind the person hiding in the bushes, and grab him by the arm, yanking him rudely to his feet.
"Okay, you puny little motherfu-- kid."
...
They were being spied on by a kid. This could be problematic.
Without even bothering with an apology or another word, Reno had started to drag the boy out from his hiding place in the bushes, off toward the group.
It was all the boy could do to keep up, tripping along after him.
"Careful!" Rikku said, darting forward. "He's just a --"
Kid, wearing a suit and spying on them from behind the bushes?
"I think this one's yours, too," she said. But there was a strange note of uncertainy hiding under the surface. Reno's kid wouldn't look this waxy or underfed. Not if Reno were breathing.
Rikku set Ruba down carefully and knelt down in front of the boy. "What's your name, sweetie?"
Reno let go of the boy's arm, raised an eyebrow, and took a step back.
Kid better make it good. Because spying was a good way to tick off a Turk.
The boy shrank away from Reno's hand the moment his arm was freed, his eyes finding the face of the nice lady who was asking his name.
He straightened up slightly, squaring his shoulders and taking a deep breath before he spoke.
"Turk Clone 32, miss," he recited. "I was a success."
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he winced again. Just a little this time.
He was handing out classified information to a stranger.
Rikku flinched for entirely different reasons, eyes seeking out Reno's. Turk ... clone!? The more she heard about his stupid bullshit company, the more she hated it. He was kidding. Right?
He did not look like the sort of kid who cracked a lot of jokes.
Even Reno had to stop and stare, at that one.
Clone? Of ... obviously not just him. The kid probably had some other blood in him somewhere. But this meant that someone had made a kid. Using his blood. Because maybe it was funny or something, somewhere.
Reno wasn't laughing.
"Clone?" He raised an eyebrow. "Of?"
Clone 32 was torn between attempting to run again, and answering the question. He was, after all, being asked by a senior member of the Turks. Whoever this person was, he outranked him.
By far.
"I was created in Hojo's lab using DNA samples provided by the Turks given the official names, Rude and Reno."
A question was an order, right? ... Then why did the Turk who asked the question look like he was going to be ill, right then?
32 was confused.
"Hojo."
It was not a question. It was barely a thought. It was a swear-word. It was a million promises to hunt down a freaking body just to bring it back and kill it again. It was his blood reaching a boiling point, and he was letting off steam or else he'd blow up.
"Hojo gave you a real shitty name, kid."
It was that, if he was number 32, what kind of twisted shit happened to the other 31?
Rikku was not going to be sick, because the little boy would probably misunderstand and might think it was meant somehow against him. Therefore Rikku was not going to be sick.
Rikku was not going to hug him so tightly that she crushed all of his ribs, because the little boy was probably not used to that sort of thing and might panic. Therefore Rikku was not going to hug him.
She cleared her throat. "O-o-okay, that's your ... official name, kiddo, but what do they ... call you?"
Oh please tell her that they had a nickname for him?
"Call me?"
Turk Clone 32 was even more confused, now. "They call me Turk Clone 32. I'm a prototype. The objective of the experiment that created me was to take the most useful traits of the Turks, and then breed them together to create a Turk with unquestionable loyalty to the company."
He didn't know what most of the words he just said actually meant. Which might explain why he sounded more like a kid nervously rehearsing lines for an audience, right then.
Rikku was not going to burn ShinRa to the ground, because that would mean she couldn't dive forward and squeeze the boy hard enough to crush his ribs. The hell with whether or not he panicked.
She was not going to fucking call him Turk Clone 32 for a weekend and how dare that monster grow little kids in vats and okay, no burning ShinRa to the ground, that would mean letting go.
That's when inspiration struck her full force between the eyes. Please, please, please let her be right on this one ...
"But ... you're a Turk, aren't you?" Rikku said, as if the implications of that were obvious. he sounded so proud when he said he was a success, and Reno always stood a little straighter when he said Turk, and ...
She looked over at Reno, hoping he'd catch on, and back to the boy again. "Turks always get new names."
Reno had to take another moment to swallow down rage. But he was listening.
He nodded. And took in a slow, deep breath. And paused to visualize someone slamming Hojo's oversized forehead into a wall.
And then he felt better.
"We do," he agreed. "Before we even go on our first assignments, zoto. All Turks get a new name."
"I was told I was gonna have to earn it," 32 replied, looking even more confused. "If I continued to be a success, then I would Join The Turks and then I'd get a name."
He frowned a little.
"I was caught." He rubbed at his arm to demonstrate. No good Turk would be found out so easily.
Reno was going to kill things and they were going to die and he'd light them on fire and dance in the embers and piss on the ashes and-
"You impressed me, kid. The only reason I caught you was because I'm better than you. One of the bonuses of bein' an experienced Turk. You learn, zoto."
He tilted his head, appraisingly.
"Bein' the second-in-command of the Turks, and the only one on the island right here, means I get to promote you at will. Nobody else found you. You got what it takes. Welcome to the Turks."
Now take a real goddamn name.
Turk Clone 32 stared for a moment, wide-eyed. A promotion? To the Turks? Right here and now, just like that? And that meant that he could pick a name and never have to go back to the facility or see Hojo or be poked at again, right? He could be a real Turk and go on missions and be a useful part of ShinRa?
He straightened up, standing at attention, and he opened his mouth to speak. A name. He gets a name. He doesn't get to be a Turk until he finds a name.
"Sir, I-" ... A... name? "- don't... know what to... Call myself."
Please, please don't demote him again and send him back, please?
Oh, good. There went her heart, ripped out and still bleeding right there on the floor. Who needed one?
Pick something. Pick anything. You can be Bob or Eigaar or Lucinda or Prancibald or --
"Rede," she said, voice much calmer than anything she felt. "Your name is Rede."
Reno. Rude. Nice and simple and hey, it wasn't like they didn't have enough R-names already.
"Rede?" He looked again at the lady. Rede.
...
"My name is Rede," he agreed, and his shoulders went a little straighter, and maybe that was a smile on his lips. Maybe that moment right there reminded Reno of Rude. And of himself.
Turk Pride.
Very good. The kid had a name. Not that stupid number that Hojo liked to slap onto everything he touched.
The kid wasn't a number. He was a Turk.
"Welcome to the Turks, Rede."
He paused, looked around at the ragtag band of children that they were collecting, and then at Rikku.
"Romeo. And Dojima. And then breakfast. On me."
(OOC: Oooooohkay! Preplayed with the fabulous wee_beauty, raspberryturk, startswithanr, singsanddances, and weetinyturk, and thanks to sarcasm_guy who coded some of this beast. The roving menagerie is NFI, please, but broadcast is a-okay and OOC is love.)