[95]

[urbandev]

I'm sure everyone here came from happy, functional families. Forcing us to talk about our homes couldn't possibly wreak havoc, City.

Hm. I can't say much about my father. He was never there. I started working for ShinRa because he wanted me to. He was an MP for most of my childhood, dispatched wherever they needed him. He wanted me to be the same, or to go into SOLDIER.

At any rate, he lived in the barracks and Mother and I kept a small house in a village just a few miles south of Kalm. She had huge gardens on every side of the house. She grew all of our food, but she really loved the flowers. Wildflowers, roses -- if it bloomed, she would grow it. And then Father was transferred -- forced retirement, more like, he was too old to fight. Work detail in Junon. He finally got an apartment and moved us to the city to be with him. We lived outside of town, in the lower water, off by the docks. It always smelled like dead fish, and nothing would grow. Mother kept a small window box, and I used to walk it out to the beach every day to catch some sunshine.

Father didn't approve when I decided to continue school rather than enlist. Even when I dropped out to work for ShinRa, he wasn't happy. Well, I might have been more of the man he'd wanted if he'd been around occasionally.

He died a little after construction was completed on Midgar. By then I had enough to buy Mother a house on the upper level. We imported soil from all over the planet for her garden. Sector 8 was the only one with natural top soil; everywhere else it was synthetic. It didn't matter. She'd really loved Father, though I'll never understand how. She stopped planting her gardens -- not all at once, but slowly. And I stopped coming by as often as I should have.

She had Denzel, the last few weeks. He helped her plant again, even though it was December. And then Meteor -- We tried to evacuate everyone, but she wouldn't leave gardens. And there were too many lives for them to stop and argue with one senile old lady. She was one of the people we didn't get out.

I think -- it was probably better. What a terrible thing to say. I don't know if they'd told her I was dead by that point, or if they'd told her I'd betrayed the company, but she was tired. The garden was all washed away by the Lifestream, anyway.

Oh. And I have no need of sugar, Deities, nor am I going anywhere near that woman to claim some.

[OOC: Info on Reeve's father is mostly fanon. All the stuff on Ruvi, however, is as canon as you consider the cracktastic short stories set between Advent Children and DoC to be. XD;;;;

As for the sugar... well, the only real enemy Reeve's got in the City is Jadis, and she's got enemies of her own, amIrite?]

Comments

[turk-director.livejournal.com]

I wanted to send someone to look for your family. I really did. But the employee database was offline and I didn't know where to look, plus we were running out of helicopter fuel and our orders were to evacuate the children first...

Sighs.

I guess I could spend the rest of my life apologising, but regret solves nothing. All we can do is move forward.

You mentioned the name Denzel. Is that name just a coincidence?

[urbandev.livejournal.com]

It's alright, Tseng, I was there too. And it was my responsibility.

The name -- no. The boy Tifa adopted.

[turk-director.livejournal.com]

I would argue with you which of us had the highest rank back then and thus the responsibility but it would probably be pointless.

So one of the children under Cloud's care also knew your mother? Small planet. Although I guess it's not that difficult to believe.

[urbandev.livejournal.com]

His father was a ShinRa office grunt. We killed his family. Afterwords he ended up in her care, then Tifa's and Cloud's.

[turk-director.livejournal.com]

By "we" you mean AVALANCHE....?

Hmm. I guess it just goes to show that the line between right and wrong can often be quite blurry. Familiar territory for myself, although you knew that already.