Archive of Our Own ^beta

Two years on and it's still a drop that makes Elena's stomach lurch. She steps forward with one foot, leaning to look beyond the tip of her boot, and looks down. The treetops and dusty rocks around Wutai are far too miniature for her liking. She swallows as her stomach drops and she steps back from the edge, wiping sweat from her brow and closing her eyes.

She lifts her left hand and rubs her other thumb over the Wutaian characters tattooed on her wrist, below her palm.

Da Chao.

Two little words, yet so loaded.

She takes a breath. It's like a beautiful nightmare up here. The landscape is bathed in a golden sunset, illuminating the town below in glorious shades of red and gold. The evening sun is still warm on her skin, a gentle breeze pushing through the stillness.

And yet, Elena can still remember how it all looked in reverse, suspended upside down as she was from the rock that's now behind her. Can still hear Yuffie's screams. Feel the warmth of the rock against her back. The tickle of blood running from the Bolt wound in her shoulder blade, courtesy of Corneo's lackeys.

She still doesn't know which was more nauseating: the death drop above (or below, technically) her upside down head, or Corneo's disgusting big belly that hung over his jeans, the sheen of sweat on his pasty skin.

"Elena, don't act so weak."

Reno's words still cut if she thinks about them hard enough. And yet, he and Rude had rushed to save her like their asses were on fire. She'll never forget that feeling, either.

She thumbs her tattoo again.

That Tseng came to Wutai the following day is still one of her fondest memories of him. He had no reason to be there, no company business to attend to. Yet, he came anyway. For her, as she found out later. She still remembers his dark, suited figure standing at her bedside in the hours that followed, the feel of his palm on her thigh as she lay in a half conscious, battered stupor of shame and exhaustion.

And then how in the days that followed, he hand delivered the the last of Corneo's lackeys to her, so she could end the whole miserable affair herself.

That was when she knew they really regarded her as a fellow Turk, and not just some rookie to babysit.

She thumbs the tattoo again.

"I didn't expect to find you up here." Tseng approaches her from behind, his footsteps crunching in the sandy dirt.

"And yet you came up here anyway," she says. She doesn't turn around but suspects that he can hear her smile.

"For as much as you hate heights, I had a hunch." A gentle hand settles at her waist, the other finding her shoulder. "A good one, apparently."

Tseng always knows. She'd find it infuriating if it wasn't so endearing. As cliché as it sounds, he's like another half of her soul.

"You don't like heights either," she says. "And yet..."

"Yes, well." He clears his throat. "I had a stray Turk to find."

"I'm sorry for disappearing," she says, looking down at her feet, still not entirely comfortable with their proximity to the edge of the mountainside.

She feels him shrug. "We finished the job we came here for, you're on your own time."

The hand that's on her shoulder shifts, moving a little lower, caressing a gentle, deliberate trail over the scar beneath her shirt. He moves up and down, slowly, tenderly.

"In some ways it still feels like yesterday," Elena mutters. "In others, it's a lifetime ago."

He leans in closer, kisses her shoulder and then the side of her neck. She reaches for him with one hand, finding the side of his face and cupping his cheek, tilting her head against his.

"You knew I would come here," she says. She wants to look at him but instead, there's just sky, Wutai and the sunset.

"Yes." A pause. "I knew you would have to prove to yourself that you could." Another pause. "Like all those times I met you up on the roof of the Shinra building, standing at the edge, precisely because you hated it up there."

"You hated it too."

"So then we understand each other," he says, squeezing her with his hands.

She smiles and slides her hand from his cheek into his pristine hair. Sometimes, it's just so damn nice that she doesn't have to make him understand.

He catches her wrist, lifting her hand away and threading his fingers through hers. "You never did tell me what this means," he says. Elena turns to him then, still holding his hand, still in his embrace. It's almost like they're about to dance.

"What what means?"

"This," he says, smoothing a thumb over her tattoo.

"Yes you do," she says, eyeing him sceptically. "We're standing on it."

Tseng raises an eyebrow. The eyebrow, and she knows she won't escape this one. "You know, for someone so talkative, you're quite the expert at avoiding talking sometimes."

Elena smirks at him, and he gives her a playful jolt. His gaze, though, is penetrating and serious.

"Da Chao," he says. "Why would you want to be reminder of what happened here?"

She looks over his shoulder at the chubby face carved into the rock. The ropes are cutting into her ankles, into her wrists, so hard that it burns.

Tseng guides her attention back to him with a finger on her jaw.

"It's to remind me that I'm a Turk," she says, pushing the memory down. "Reno and Rude... they came for me." She looks down. "I didn't think they would."

Tseng tips her chin up with the same finger.

"To remind me that you came for me. And that, in the end, I won. With your help."

His eyes are still dark with that penetrating seriousness. What is he thinking? That she's pathetic for needing—

His thumb strokes her cheek, and a smile warms his features as he looks down at her. And then his lips are warm and soft over hers.

"You know," Elena says, her lips still close to his. "I never thought this place would end up somewhere only we know."

Tseng hums a laugh and touches his forehead to hers. "That reminds me. Reno owes me 50 gil."

"He what?"

"He was totally convinced you would never set foot up here again."

"But you knew different," Elena smiles wryly.

Tseng shrugs. "Somewhere only we know."