Title: The Pick-Up
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Rating: PG
Length: 500 Words
Content Notes: No warnings apply.
Author Notes: The prompt is also the main character.
Summary: Rude has a minor appointment to keep.

* * * *

11:00 PM

The contact had requested a face-to-face meeting. That made Rude smile. He had not related the message to his superiors. No reason to do that. He had the situation under control, and the others trusted him. After all, he had saved their lives, and more than once. He had the credibility that only a long career of perfect service could buy.

Shame he had to omit the meeting from his record of day-to-day tasks.

He spotted her at the location she had named. A bar. One of the clean places, not one of the holes he had to tag for investigation in the past. He could see her through the front windows. Blue dress. Modest, but she had a way of making anything modest look like a scandal waiting to happen. And she did not have to change a single detail about herself for that. She did it all through attitude, all the little ways she carried herself.

She sat there alone, and Rude thought that a young lady in a blue dress might benefit from the presence of a company man in a three-piece suit, fresh from dry cleaning.

He managed to keep his face neutral as he spotted him through the windows and waved at him, smiling a rare smile. Perfect teeth. Perfect lips. Perfect face.

Perfect woman, if he thought about it, but he kept that thought to himself.

He sat next to her at the bar, saying, "Strange seeing you on this side."

"Not my bar," she replied, shrugging, "not this time." And she rested her elbows on the lacquered wood. "Anybody follow you here, or did you come alone, like I asked?"

"Just me," he said, pretending to check his cufflinks, "on my off time. You?"

"You know they're not here." She pretended to scold him. "Too much else to do." That smile again. "Besides, this is Edge, not Midgar. Things are different now."

"Yeah," he admitted. "I'm talking to you instead of fighting you."

"And you're here for a date instead of doing dirty work." She tilted her head in that way she did, the way he always noticed. "But they think you're out on a mission. Right?"

"Yeah," he said, "they do." His turn for a smile. More of a smirk. "But I'm not."

"No, you're not." A laugh, small and private. "What do you think, then? Stay here, or go out for a bite? I'm actually pretty flexible when it comes to a night out, you know."

"Lady's choice. That's my vote."

"Let me think about it for a minute." She held her drink, still mostly full, in both hands. "The atmosphere here's not too bad, after all. Let's soak it up for a bit."

"Yeah, Tifa. Let's." Rude looked down at the bar, then back up at her, and all of the background noise seemed to fade to nothing when he did that.

Heck of a pick-up, huh? And he laughed a little, if only inside his head.

END.