Desha's Reno of the Turks Fan Fiction

Chapter 37: Memory only slumbers—never dies

The strange woman pulled back a little staring at the redhead. “Reno… That’s not funny. I was really worried…”

“Yeah… I kinda got that when you jumped into my arms,” he replied, with a thoughtful frown as wracked his brain trying to findsomething – anything – familiar about her. It was obvious she knew exactly who he was, but she was a complete blank to him. At a loss, he glanced over at Tseng, who’s expression mirrored his own. “But I’m not jokin’… and I’m guessin’ that’s probably not a good thing.”

Tseng turned to Rude. “Go and find Ward,” he said, before moving closer to the bed. The bald Turk gave a curt nod of acknowledgment and vanished from the room. “You don’t recognize her? At all?”

Reno looked at the woman, focusing on her face, but no matter how hard he tried, nothing seemed to spark a memory of her. And even with his proclivity for acquainting himself with new women on a regular basis, he was fairly certain he’d’ve remembered someone as pretty as this one… even if he hadn’t caught her name at the time.

“Sorry… I got nothin’,” he said, finally. The wounded look in the woman’s eyes didn’t go unnoticed. He felt a little guilty for that, though there really wasn’t anything he could do about it.

“What’s the last thing you do remember?” Tseng asked, his calm tone not entirely masking the concern he very obviously felt. Reno closed his eyes for a moment and thought back.

“… Last thing I can remember before wakin’ up here is bein’ in your office. You wanted to talk to me about scarin’ off that asshole that keeps handin’ out those fliers in front of the building. Heh… I was actually really annoyed ’cause I was s’posed to be meetin’ Jessica from the accounting office for dinner, and the girls down there get kinda ticked if you’re late…”

Tseng’s frown deepened and he took a seat in the chair beside the bed. “Reno… tell me something. How old are you?”

“Tch… That’s kind of a weird question, don’t ya think?”

“Humor me,” the Turk leader said, firmly.

“Come on, boss,” he said with a laugh, “You know how old I am…”

“Yes… I do. What I’m curious about is whether or not you do.”

The redhead eyed him nervously as he suddenly realized that things might be a little more serious than he’d thought.

“Twenty four?” he replied, not quite as certain of that as he had been a few moments ago. Tseng shook his head and shifted his gaze to the woman, who, Reno noted, had hardly dared breathe during the entire exchange and was still awkwardly clutching him. Her grip tightened slightly at his answer.

“Well… That would certainly explain why he doesn’t recognize you.” The Wutaiian calmly pressed his fingertips together, returning his focus to the redhead, and Reno cringed. He’d seen that look before… it usually accompanied bad news.

“Don’t sit there tryin’ to figure out the best way to say it. Just fuckin’ tell me.”

Tseng let his hands drop. “The incident you referred to… I vaguely remember it. It was quite some time ago.” He paused for a moment, but finally pressed forward. “Reno… you’re twenty six. In fact, you’ll be twenty seven in a few months. You’ve somehow lost a little over two years.”

He felt himself go cold. Two years? No… that wasn’t possible. A few hours, he could understand. Maybe even a day or two, if he’d taken a hard enough knock to the head. But two years? Tseng had to have spontaneously developed a sense of humor and started bullshitting him… because there was no was in hell that he could have just forgotten two years of his life…

“R-Reno? Are you okay?” a soft voice asked, and he blinked, shaking himself from his internal monologue to find the pretty blonde woman staring at him with a distinctly worried look.

“Uh… No. No, I’m definitely not…” he managed, feeling more than a little in shock. The woman pulled him into a tight embrace, coaxing his head down onto her shoulder and lightly petting his hair. The redhead let his eyes close for a moment. He might not have known who she was, but he could certainly get to like having her attention focused so exclusively on him. “Are ya ever gonna tell me who you are?” he asked, as some of his tension eased.

“This is Elena… our newest Turk and your rookie,” Tseng stated. “As it happens… she’s also your girlfriend.”

Reno suddenly jerked to attention, eyes going wide. “My… what?!” he asked, incredulously. Before his mentor could answer, however, Rude returned, Dr. Ward in tow.

“Now what’s all this about yeh not remembering anything?” she asked, and though her tone was light, Reno could clearly see that she was concerned. “Elena, dear, I’m going ta need yeh ta move for a bit…”

The redhead found himself reluctantly abandoned, and the woman… Elena, he silently amended… retreated to Tseng’s side. He frowned in response, finding that he really hadn’t wanted her to leave him. He’d felt safe with her, for some reason. Now he felt exposed and a little lost. Ward leaned over him, and he grimaced as the elderly doctor shined a light into each eye. He blinked, trying to clear the spots from his vision.

“Fuck, Doc… ya tryin’ ta blind me, too?” he said, scowling.

“Hmph… unless yeh can convince me that yeh’ve somehow also managed to forget how I feel about language like that, yeh best watch yer mouth…” she replied, before taking a firm hold of his chin, holding his head in place. “Follow my finger.”

He did as requested, eyes trailing the movements of the digit as she moved it from point to point. “Any dizziness? Blurred vision? Nausea?”

“Nah… just a headache. Had it since I woke up.”

“How bad is it?” the doctor asked.

“Not that bad… it was worse when I first woke up. It’s already gettin’ better.”

“Hmm…” Ward leaned back from him and turned to Tseng. “Well… his scans from earlier didn’t show any swelling, but that doesn’t mean some hasn’t developed in the interim. I told yeh I was a bit concerned about a concussion. Memory loss would certainly be a symptom. Can yeh tell me just how pronounced it is?”

“Two years, give or take…” Tseng replied, “He has no memory of Elena at all…” Ward’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

“That’s quite the timeframe…” she replied. “Right… First order of business is ta get yeh some fresh scans and find out what’s going on in that head of yer’s. I’ll go and see ta that right now.”

Ward straightened and moved towards the door.

“Justinia…” Tseng called after her, and she turned back, “Just how serious do you think this is?”

“I’d hesitant ta say quite yet… Head injuries can be tricky,” she said, shaking her head. “He might wake up and remember everything tomorrow morning, for all I can tell yeh right now. I’ll have a better idea once I get those scans.”

---

As Elena stepped into the elevator alongside Tseng, she could already feel the tears she’d been holding back threatening to break free. Rude had volunteered to stay with Reno tonight and contact them with any important updates. She had volunteered first, but Tseng had pointed out… as tactfully as possible… that a familiar face might be more comforting to the redhead, who had been, understandably, disturbed by the whole situation.

That had hurt.

“I can’t imagine what this must be like for you…”

Elena looked over at her superior, and took a shaky breath. “It’s all gone. Everything. He has no idea who I am or how much he means to me…”

“For now, perhaps,” Tseng replied.

“What if he never remembers?”

He drew her in, pulling her against his chest, and Elena couldn’t help but be surprised. The Wutaiian wasn’t exactly well-known for displays of physical affection. Apparently she was looking far more distraught than she’d realized. “He’s still Reno… That hasn’t changed. Whatever he may have lost, he is more than capable of regaining in time.”

“But there’s so much…” A tear slipped through her attempts to hold it back, sliding down her cheek, and Tseng gently wiped it away.

“You’re much too focused on the worst-case scenario, Elena,” he said firmly. “There’s no reason to get ahead of ourselves. Let’s wait and see what Ward has to say tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, sir…” she sighed. They stepped off of the elevator and made their way out of the building to the parking deck, walking slowly toward Elena’s car.

“Would you like me to drive?”

They’d arrived together… Tseng still hadn’t gotten around to replacing his own vehicle. She was about to refuse, not wanting to show any more weakness than she already had, until she realized that she really didn’t want to have to focus on keeping them on the road right now. And what did it matter anyway? Even if she put on a brave face and turned down the offer, the man would have seen right through it. Elena nodded and handed over the keys.

---

“I.” Thud. “Feel.” Thud. “Fine.” Thud. CRASH. “Gah! Fuck. Hey… uh… Rude? Ya think ya could maybe hide that before Ward sees it?”

Rude pointedly took the pillow the redhead had been carelessly tossing at the ceiling away from him, before shaking the bits of shattered ceiling tile off of the blanket and nudging them beneath the bed.

“Think she’ll notice?” the younger man asked, staring up at the gaping hole above him.

The bald Turk gave a soft snort of laughter.

“Yeah… You’re right. I’m fucked.”

“If you’re trying to get thrown out for damaging hospital property, I don’t think it’ll work.”

“Noted,” he acknowledged, grinning. Reno leaned back, cupping his hands behind his head and stared up at the hole. “So… you guysaren’t just fuckin’ with me, are ya? Ya didn’t… I dunno, drug me n’ bring me here, and try ta sell me this bizarre story, right? ‘Cause, I’ll admit, that’d be one hell of an epic joke, but if there’s a punchline, it’s way overdue…”

“Sorry,” his partner replied.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Reno sighed, “And that blonde chick… Elena? We’re really together? Like… together, together…”

“Yep. For about a month now.”

“How the fuck did that happen?” he asked, chuckling softly. At best, there were a few women who’d kept him entertained enough that he continued to invite them over for the night from time to time. And of course, Lira turned up at his place pretty regularly. But he’d never pictured himself finding someone on a more permanent basis… or maybe it was more accurate to say he’d never pictured anyone putting up with him on a more permanent basis.

“It almost didn’t… Mostly because you’re an idiot.”

Reno turned his head and glared at his partner. “Oh, thanks. I’m layin’ here with two years worth of memories missin’, and you call me an idiot.”

“Only because it’s true,” Rude snickered. “You almost let her get away.”

Reno skeptically cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, please… Now I know you’re shittin’ me.”

“Nope. Like I said. You’re an idiot.”

He shook his head, propping himself up on one elbow. “Come on, Rude… level with me. What’s so special about her? I mean… she’s hot as hell, I’ll give her that, but… Me? Gettin’ tied down like that? I don’t get it.”

Rude shrugged. “She’s one of us,” he said simply.

“Which brings up another point…” the redhead continued, “I know there’s no specific rule against hookin’ up with other Turks… and believe me, I’ve had occasion to checked on that before… but, uh… Tseng didn’t have anything to say ’bout me gettin’ involved with someone I’m s’posed to be mentorin’? Hell, for that matter… What the fuck am I doin’ gettin’ involved with someone I’m s’posed to be mentorin’? Boss finally trusts me with a rookie, and I’m immediately in bed with her? The fuck’s wrong with me?”

His partner sniggered… softly at first, but after a moment, it became a fit of uncontrollable laughter. Reno stared at him confused, and a little insulted.

“What’s so goddamn funny?!” he demanded. It took Rude a few more seconds to calm down enough to answer him.

“There nothing ‘immediate’ about it,” he replied, still fighting to keep himself under control. “I think even Lira was starting to think it would never happen. Elena’s been a Turk for over a year now.”

“… It took me a fuckin’ year to talk a girl into sleepin’ with me?”

The bald man snickered loudly. “No… it was a year before she finally got around to seducing you. You wouldn’t even try.”

“What?!” That… definitely didn’t sound like him, rookie or not.

“I really should be recording all of your reactions…” Rude commented, still unable to keep a straight face upon seeing Reno’s expression of pure disbelief.

“That fuckin’ phone comes out, it’s going straight out the window,” the redhead growled, as menacingly as a man in hospital gown could possibly manage to be. But a few moments later, his face fell. “So… I guess she’s gotta be pretty upset, then, huh?”

“Goes without saying,” Rude agreed.

“Fuck.” He flopped onto his back and resumed staring up at the ceiling. She’d seemed nice… He didn’t like thinking about her off on her own, worried about him. Though surely Tseng would look after her tonight if she was really that upset. “Is it… like… serious? Between me ‘n her, I mean? Or is it just… ya know, a whenever it’s convenient kinda thing…?” Maybe things weren’t as bad as his partner was making them seem… He’d had arrangements like that before with female Turks. It was never really a relationship… just a sort mutual agreement to fuck when one party or the other didn’t feel like trolling for a date. Simple, convenient, and no messy emotions to get in the way.

“… It’s more than just sex with her. A lot more,” Rude replied, all teasing gone from his voice. Reno internally groaned. It figured. “I almost hate to say it right now given the circumstances, but… you’ve been in love with Elena practically from her first day.”

Reno’s gaze shifted minutely toward him. “Gettin’ a little sappy there, don’tchya think, Rude… ?”

“I mean it. Took you forever to actually admit it to yourself, but we could all see what was happening. She’s important to you, and has been from the start.”

“Was important to me…” he muttered. Tears of frustration came, unbidden, gathering in the corners of his eyes, and he rapidly blinked them back before he lost control of them. “I don’t remember anything about her right now. How do ya just forget somethin’ like that, man?”

“Not my area of expertise. You’d have to ask Ward,” Rude said, shrugging. The redhead went silent for a while, lost in his own thoughts. The truth was, finding someone like that was a tempting fantasy he’d always just assumed he was never meant to have. He was too flighty… too immature. And much, much too tainted. He was great for a little fun, but when it came to anything of substance, he just didn’t measure up, and he’d accepted that fact a long time ago. It was hard to imagine he’d somehow changed that much in just two years.

---

“Well, I have good news for yeh…”

“They’re servin’ somethin’ other than this sludge for breakfast?” the redhead shot back as he lifted a spoonful of oatmeal and let it ooze slowly back into the bowl. He didn’t mind it really. It was perfectly edible… even if it was indescribably bland and had the texture of glue… but you would think a hospital would at least try and serve something that wouldn’t make most people sick to look at it.

“No,” Ward replied, “But yeh are free ta go just as soon as yeh finish that.”

Rude looked up in surprise. “You’re letting him leave?”

Dr. Ward nodded. “All of his scans came back clear. There is some swelling and evidence of a very minor concussion but nothing that would warrant keeping him here any longer.” She looked pointedly at her patient. “And frankly, I think yeh’d be better off somewhere else anyway… if only ta save the rest of the ceiling from yer destructive boredom.”

“Uhh…” Reno glanced up at the missing ceiling tile above his bed. “No idea what you’re talkin’ about Doc. It was like that when I got here. Right, partner?”

Rude wisely ignored him. “But he still can’t remember anything from the past two years…”

“That little detail hasn’t slipped my mind, believe me…” the doctor assured him, “But unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do but wait and see if fixes itself. He’s otherwise fine. Keeping him here wouldn’t be of any use ta anyone… in fact, it may actually do more harm than good. Sometimes, all it takes in cases like this is being surrounded by the familiar for a bit.”

“So’s that mean your clearin’ me to go back to work, or am I stuck stayin’ at home in bed?” Reno asked. He was already stripping away the electrodes connected to the heart monitor. Ward reached over and shut it off before the alarm could sound.

“Yeh can go in… but no field work, and no training, until that concussion resolves itself. Yeh can keep Tseng company in the office until then. I’d say by Monday I’ll be clearin’ yeh both for active duty… though I expect yeh to come see me immediately if yeh have any new symptoms or the memory loss gets any worse.”

“… How am I s’posed to remember to come see ya if I forget about you tellin’ me to come see ya?” the redhead asked with a smirk. The doctor shot him a warning look. “Alright… geez… Just kiddin’.”

“I mean it… I don’t want ta see yeh bein’ carried in against yer will like yeh usually are, and yer ta take things slow and easy until I say otherwise. Now… a few things ta keep in mind…”

Reno rolled his eyes and did his best to listen… but his thoughts kept wandering.

---

Elena chewed softly on her bottom lip as she read through Reno’s notes. Even with Tseng still on restricted duty, Reno in the hospital and Rude keeping an eye on him, Heidegger expected them to be ready for Friday’s weapon test. At the rate they were going, she might very well be the only Turk who showed up tomorrow… a prospect that didn’t exactly thrill her.

At some point on Tuesday, Reno and Rude had sat down with the blueprints the weapons department had sent them. She rolled her eyes and couldn’t help the tiny laugh that escaped when she noticed that Rude had crossed out the text at the bottom that read “Proud Clod”, and relabeled the schematics “Armored Potato”.

From what she could gather from the notes, the pair of them had determined that the actual weapon itself was relatively weak, offensively… at least by Shinra Weapons standards – though it would certainly be more than capable of doing some significant damage to a comparatively tiny, unarmored Turk. Defense was where it really excelled. It was virtually indestructible, meaning it would be able to wear down whatever happened to be facing off against it, no matter how powerful the opponent was.

She shook her head. Even with all four of them fighting it, they’d be lucky if they so much as dented the thing. With only two… three at most, if Reno was somehow able to join them… it was impossible.

She groaned and leaned forward resting her head in her hands. As if her week hadn’t sucked badly enough as it was…

“Things aren’t going well, I take it?” Tseng’s voice said behind her. Elena groaned again in response.

“I’m in so far over my head, sir…” she replied, not looking up.

“Then I suppose it’s a good thing that I’ve brought you some help…”

The rookie lifted her head, turning towards the meeting-room-turned-planning-center’s door, and her eyes widened.

“Reno!” she cried, getting to feet. Moments later she was hugging him.

“Heh… Hey, Elena…”

She loosened her grip on him and leaned back, frowning at the use of her full name. “You still don’t remember me, do you?”

“Uh… no. Sorry. But I’m definitely not complainin’ about the greeting…” he replied, cocking his head to one side and grinning teasingly. Elena managed a small smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Unfortunately, I’m afraid Reno’s lack of recovery means it’s going to be just you and Rude against Scarlet’s Proud Clod… He’s been sidelined, and Ward has outright refused to release me from her restrictions by tomorrow,” said Tseng.

“But the good news is that means ya basically get me for whatever else ya need. I literally don’t have anything to do ’til Monday. There aren’t even any reports in the backlog for me to file… and someone is definitely gonna have to explain to me how the fuck that happened…” the redhead added.

“I’ll leave that explanation to Elena. Rude will be joining you after lunch…” the Turk leader assured them, turning to leave, “Should you require my assistance, I’ll be upstairs… attempting to talk Heidegger into postponing this idiotic exercise. I expect I’ll be at it for awhile.”

Reno joined her, palms resting on top of the table as he leaned over her shoulder and peered at the schematics. “So… from what Tseng told me, this thing’s built to be run by two people, right?” Elena nodded. Having him that close was almost akin to torture, knowing that everything between them had suddenly been blinked right out of existence. Reno swore, clearly annoyed. “Who the fuck let me take notes? And what the fuck’s a ‘naked canner’?”

Elena suddenly laughed in spite of herself. “That says ‘mako cannon’,” she giggled. “I always knew you couldn’t read your own handwriting…”

“Hey… I can read most of it,” the redhead responded, defensively. “I… just have a tendency to try ‘n write too fast sometimes and it gets a little outta control.” He paused for a moment. “Wait… you can read that shit?”

The rookie smiled widely and nodded, smugly.

“Ya know… You have a nice smile,” the redhead suddenly commented, and grinned. “Heh… and kind of a nice everything, actually…”

She hadn’t been expecting that. It wasn’t the teasing sort of flirting she’d grown used to hearing from the redhead before they’d started seeing one another. Elena blushed and dropped her gaze.

“What?” Reno asked, slightly puzzled, “I thought we were an item. I never tell ya how pretty you are?”

“It’s not that…” she replied, shaking her head in denial, “It’s just… a little strange.”

“‘Cause I hardly know anything about ya?” he offered.

“Well… that. And you kind of never really said things like that to me before. At least not seriously.”

Reno looked at her, thoroughly confused. “So, hold on… You’re tellin’ me I never came onto ya… and Rude told me that you’re the one who got this whole relationship thing started…” He blinked and took a seat in the chair next to hers. “What kinda bizarre, fucked up alternate reality did I wake up in? Next you’ll be tellin’ me I’ve started watchin’ that Shadow & Sword crap with Rude…”

Elena snickered softly. “No… you still hate Shadow & Sword.”

“Oh, thank fuck,” he sighed, relieved, “I’m not sure I coulda lived with the idea of me actually gettin’ into that stupid show.”

“Hey! I happen to like that ‘stupid show’.”

“Oh, dear Ifrit… You’re one of them?” the redhead groaned, closing his eyes in mock dismay and slumping forward in the chair, sprawling across the tabletop from his seat.

Elena gently poked him in the ribs until he sat up. “Yep. You’re dating a romance novel reading, teen pop loving, over-achieving, neat freak Swordie,” she informed him with a smirk, listing out everything she could think of that he liked to tease her about.

“Teen pop?” he repeated, looking slightly horrified. The rookie laughed at his expression for a moment before sobering as she realized that, no matter how amusing watching him react to things like that might be, it was only driving home the point that every interaction she’d ever had with the man had been wiped from his memory. Something in her own face must have changed, because the next thing she knew, she was in his arms. “This kinda sucks, huh?” Reno said, one hand gently rubbing her back.

“Yeah.”

“Look… at the risk of bein’ way more serious than I usually like… I spent most of last night layin’ around thinkin’ about shit. I know things are gonna be a little weird between us for awhile, but I don’t like the idea of lettin’ go of someone special. Even if I can’t remember what makes ’em so special at the moment. I don’t have nearly enough people like that in my life to just forget one. So… I guess what I’m sayin’ is just try and treat me the way you normally would. I’ll figure it out from there.”

Elena looked up at him. “Does… does that mean that Ward doesn’t think you’ll get you memory back?” she asked, somewhat miserably.

Reno snickered. “She hasn’t got a fuckin’ clue, I don’t think. How’s that for modern medicine? But she did say that sometimes bein’ around familiar people ‘n shit can trigger somethin’.” He tucked a few strands of hair back behind her ear. “So… that in mind, how ’bout you spend some time with me bein’ familiar?”

She smiled a little. “Did you just ask me out?”

“Dinner tonight?” he replied, grinning. Elena laughed… it was actually a little flattering having him make a serious effort at hitting on her. It was something he’d only ever done as a joke before… In a way, she’d largely missed out on experiencing that part of his personality.

“Absolutely. I’d love to,” she said. “But right now, we really do need to focus on the Proud Clod…”

“Yeah, fine. So… about that naked canner…”

---

Elena’s foot tapped impatiently as she waited for the elevator to reach her destination. It wasn’t helping matters that she’d somehow stepped aboard at the same time as half the residents of the building… all of whom seemed to be getting off on a different floor. At last, the couple heading to the sixth floor disembarked, the doors sliding shut behind them, and she was carried upwards toward her apartment.

She didn’t know why she was in such a hurry, really… It wasn’t as if Reno was going to start dinner without her if it took her a few extra minutes to get changed and feed Snuffy. The elevator chimed and opened, and Elena hurried out… only to slam face first into a solid body.

She staggered back a step with a soft oof and looked up at the unexpected obstacle.

“We seem to be bumping into each other very often lately, yes?”

“Antonio… I’m so sorry. I was in a hurry and not paying attention at all…” she said, embarrassed. That was twice in less than a week now. The guy had to be thinking she was some sort of ditzy airhead.

“It truly is no great inconvenience… but if you are feeling bad about it, perhaps you will join me for dinner as an apology?”

“Oh… Well, I… That’s very nice of you to offer, but I’m actually already running later for a dinner date as it is…”

“Dates can always be broken, yes?” he said, with a dashing smile, moving a step closer to her.

Elena took a step back, reclaiming her personal space. “Er… I… I appreciate the offer, but…” she began.

“But you already have made arrangements with the redhead.” He shook his head and stepped toward her taking her hand in both of his. “He is a worm. I saw him after you threw him out, slinking off into the night… no doubt to someone else’s bed. Men like that do not deserve a lovely woman like you. You should have far better than a scrawny nothing who does not appreciate what he has…”

Elena pulled back her hand, somewhat angrily. “You don’t know the first thing about him, and I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t talk about him like that.”

“I do not know the first about him? Ha. I know he thinks of you as something he must possess, and treats you as such. I could hear you shouting at him. He is no good. But I… I would treat you as though you were something precious.”

“… You were listening to us?” Elena felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. The man lived several doors down, and she’d seen him heading for his own apartment… She and Reno certainly hadn’t been so loud he could have overheard them from there. He had to have been intentionally eavesdropping… and that definitely creeped her out. The rookie gave a humorless laugh, and pushed past him. “Reno was right about you. I actually defended you and told him he was being ridiculous, and he was right all along.” She shook her head in disgust and headed for her apartment. Antonio seized her arm, hauling her back towards him.

“You will not walk away from me!” he said insistently, “No woman simply walks away from Antonio de la Vega.”

“Let go of me.”

The Costan smirked. “And what will you do if I do not?”

“Let go of me. Now.” Elena said warningly, narrowing her eyes. Antonio laughed and leaned forward, trying to kiss her. He didn’t have the chance. Her knee connected with his groin, and a few seconds later his face became intimately acquainted with her right fist. Antonio went down hard. “If you ever come near me again, I’ll really do some damage.” With that she stalked off, entering her apartment and slamming the door behind her, leaving him moaning in the middle of the hallway.

---

Reno glanced at the clock again. She was late… Not terribly late, but late. He’d expected her almost ten minutes ago.

A part of him couldn’t help but wonder if maybe she’d changed her mind. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she did. The whole situation had to be unbelievably bizarre from her point of view. It was pretty weird for him, too, but at least he wasn’t stuck with memories of being with someone who, for all intents and purposes, didn’t exist anymore. And that really was the issue at the moment. For him, the last two years never happened. He’d been, for lack of a better term, reset… to a time before they’d even met. He didn’t feel any kind of loss. He didn’t even know Elena, really. But he could very plainly see that this was affecting her… and that fact left him feeling guilty.

He’d always taken great care not to lead anyone he got involved with on. He may have been something of a slut… but he wasn’t a jerk. Or at the very least, he tried not to be. It wasn’t his goal to hurt anyone.

But Elena… this was definitely hurting her, and from the short amount of time he’d spent with her, he’d very quickly decided that he didn’t want that. It really wasn’t that hard to understand how he could have fallen for someone like her – though he still failed to see what the hell she saw in him. Elena was warm and funny, and she didn’t seem at all bothered by his jokes, no matter how lewd or just downright awful they got. In fact, the only other person who’d ever been able to tolerate his sense of humor to that extent was Lira, and that was mostly just because she shared it. Even Rude would eventually get fed up with him and tell him to knock it off.

The redhead frowned and wandered around his apartment for the umpteenth time since he’d returned home from the hospital. Much like himself, it, too, was the same but not. There were things he recognized, and things he didn’t… things that weren’t where he remembered leaving them, things he couldn’t find to save his life, and things that didn’t seem to belong at all.

The most glaring… and upsetting… oddity was the little stuffed bunny tucked lovingly into his bed. The fact that there was a stuffed animal there was nothing unusual… it was the fact that it wasn’t the one he was expecting it to be. Mr. Foo-Foo had been his most treasured possession since childhood… Discovering him missing, and a very obviously new toy in his place, had thrown him. And Mr. Foo-Foo was definitely missing. He’d been over the whole apartment. There was no trace of the toy anywhere.

What he had found, eventually, was a collection of photos… dozens of them, in fact… safely nestled away in a drawer in his bedroom. A few were of himself, along with Tseng and Rude, but most were pictures of Elena. There was one of him posing next to her with the mysterious new bunny – which he’d made a mental note to ask her about – several of her looking awkward or embarrassed, either on her own or with his arm slung casually over her shoulders, a few where she looked as though she kinda wanted to slug him, and a handful of them both – which seemed to be more recent – looking decidedly content in each other’s company… though perhaps strangest of all, was the one of the two of them looking utterly spent and disheveled, the young woman’s hair apparently dyed to match his own. He’d left the photos on the counter with the intention of showing them to the rookie over dinner and picking her brain for specifics.

At long last, a sharp knock interrupted his train of thought, and he grinned, more than a little glad not to have been stood up after all. Reno opened the door to find her waiting for him.

“Hey…” he said, standing to one side to let her in.

“Hi,” Elena replied, looking a bit annoyed, “I know I’m a little late… I had to beat up my neighbor.”

The redhead cocked an eyebrow. “Uh… That happen often?”

“No… Usually guys like that back off after the first warning. And definitely after the second.”

“He do somethin’ to ya?” Reno asked, frowning. Amnesia or not, Elena was still his rookie and his responsibility. And he wasn’t about to let some asshole start harassing her…

A tiny smile twitched the corners of her mouth upwards. “He tried. But I don’t think he’ll be trying it again.” She sighed, and shook her head, glancing up at him apologetically. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it coming, especially after what happened with creepy gym guy… I should have just listened to you. You tried to tell me what a total creep he was, and I… I just got mad at you.”

“… No idea what creepy gym guy you’re talkin’ about, but knowin’ me, I probably deserved it…” he offered, hoping to make her feel better. He quickly came to the conclusion that that was the wrong thing to say. The little smile disappeared.

“You didn’t. You just didn’t want something to happen to me… again,” she replied, her gaze dropping to the floor. “Except I was too self-righteous to realize it at the time.” Elena took a somewhat shuddering breath. “I was so angry with you, I threw you out of my apartment. And then this happened,” she said, gesturing to nothing in particularly, though Reno didn’t have much difficulty figuring out what she meant.

Reno silently groaned, and reminded himself that he really was a complete moron. He should have known better than to bring up the subject of his memory loss so flippantly… Now the rookie was upset and it was entirely his fault. Worse, he got the impression that if he didn’t do something in the next few seconds, he was going to be dealing with a woman in tears… the thought of which sent a slight surge of panic through him, given that it was also his responsibility to fix her if she did start crying. What in the nine hells had ever possessed him to chose a female rookie as his first protege? He hated seeing a woman, Turk or otherwise, get so emotional… and they tended to do it a lot. He was starting to wonder if he’d turned into some kind of masochist over the past two years…

Elena suddenly snickered softly, and he realized that she was looking up at him again.

“What?” he asked, thoroughly confused by the rapid about face in emotions.

“The look on your face,” she giggled, “I know you don’t like it when women cry, but you look so completely terrified right now…” She shook her head and laughed again. “It’s okay… I’m not going to start sobbing uncontrollably.”

The redhead relaxed a bit. “Thank Ifrit for that. So I guess that hasn’t changed much in the two years I can’t remember, at least…”

“You were getting better about it… at least with me.”

“Heh… Was I really so hard on ya that I had ya in tears often enough to get used to it?” he asked, though he was a little concerned that he might really have made her that miserable. For all he knew he’d been an absolute slave driver… though, he mused, if that were the case, they probably wouldn’t have ended up dating…

Elena smiled.

“No… You’ve just been there for me every time I really needed someone. There have been so many times that you’ve dropped everything to make sure I was alright… even when you had every right to be annoyed with me…”

“Good to know I’m not a complete asshole,” he said, grinning. “So… ya hungry? Pizza got here right before you did… It’s been sittin’ in the kitchen torturin’ me for about ten minutes now.”

“Sure… Let’s eat,” she replied, laughing as she followed him towards the little kitchenette. In a matter of minutes, they were pulling slices from the boxes, and Reno spotted the stack of photos he’d left out. He picked them up, along with his plate, and carried them over to the table, joining his date for the evening.

“What’s that?” she asked, clearly curious.

“Found ’em earlier today. I… uh… was kinda hopin’ maybe you could tell me about them. Ya know… try ‘n jump start my memory.”

Elena took the pictures from him, and picked up the one on top. It was her and Reno, the redhead’s arm snaking around her shoulders as she rolled her eyes at the camera.

“I… think this is the picture Rude took when Tseng told us we were going on our first undercover mission together,” she chuckled. “You made him take one for the scrapbook.”

“I have a scrapbook?” he asked, an eyebrow rising incredulously, and the rookie giggled.

“You know something? I don’t actually know…” she said, chuckling. “I assumed you were just joking around at the time… but you did have a hard copy of the photo made, so…” She slipped the picture to the back of the stack, studying the next one, and he saw her smile widen as she apparently recognized it.

“This is after a mission in Wall Market. Lira made me dye my hair so I could get hired at the Honeybee Inn and sneak into Don Corneo’s mansion…”

Reno suppressed a shudder. He’d sent a rookie into Corneo’s camp? And undercover as one of the brothel’s rent girls, no less… Was he out of his damn mind?

“What the hell was I doin’ sendin’ you into a place like that?” he asked, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Well… we didn’t really have a better choice,” Elena replied. “We had a target to rescue, and it was the safest way to get her out. It didn’t go quite the way we planned it, and I got a little roughed up before you were able to come back for me, but we saved her. This was on the train back to the Plate. Rude said we looked like twins. That’s why he took it.”

Reno snickered. “The hair does make us look a little… uh… related. I kinda like you as a redhead.”

“Well, it was an absolute nightmare until it finally washed out. I still don’t know how you stand all the attention.”

“I like attention,” the redhead shrugged. Elena giggled and flipped to the next photo. This was the one of the two of the and the stuffed bunny.

“This one is from this past Christmas,” she said. “We took it after Tseng and Rude had left for home on Christmas morning.”

“Yeah… That one, I was meanin’ to ask you about specifically…” said Reno. “I found the bunny, too. And I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that you’re the one who gave it to me…”

Elena nodded.

“So… I guess that means you know about… uh…”

“Mr. Foo-foo?” she offered, with a teasing grin. Reno felt his cheeks redden slightly. He didn’t typically tell anyone about his stuffed friend. He loved the little bunny dearly, but still… it was embarrassing.

“Yeah. You, uh… wouldn’t happen to know where he is, would you?”

‘Smooth, Reno. Keep it subtle. She’ll never know how much you’re worried about that damn toy…’ He silently told his inner voice to fuck off.

The rookie gave him a somewhat sad look and sighed. “It was all my fault…” she replied. Reno felt his heart sink. That didn’t sound promising.

“… What was you fault?” he cautiously asked.

“I… I was going to fix Mr. Foo-foo up a little for you. As a surprise.” The rookie chewed softly on her lower lip for a moment, looking as though she’d like to be just about anywhere but here at the moment. “It… um… It didn’t exactly go as planned.”

Reno froze. “What exactly does that mean?”

“Please, please don’t get mad…” she said, suddenly looking nervous in the extreme and shifting awkwardly in her seat. “You were so angry the last time, I was afraid you’d never speak to me again…”

“What did you do?” the redhead asked in measured tones. The toy hadn’t exactly been fragile… but it certainly hadn’t been in the best of shape anymore, either. If he found out she’d damaged it… or worse…

“It was an accident… I swear…” Elena replied.

“What did you do?” he repeated, more forcefully this time.

“I… I kind of… sethimonfire.”

Reno blinked. She’d said it so quickly and in such a quiet and borderline terrified voice, it took him a moment to process the actual words. “You… what?”

Elena swallowed sharply. “I accidentally… set him on fire. I tried to save him, but… well… there wasn’t much left to save.”

“And then, what? You thought you’d just get me a new one?” he asked, eyes narrowing.

‘Keep it together, asshole… She’s already been through this once, remember?’ his subconscious cautioned him. No, dammit, he didn’t remember. That was his entire damn problem! The revelation had hit him hard, and he was torn between being furious with the woman, or utterly devastated by the loss. At the moment, anger was ever so slightly edging out despair.

“No!” the rookie cried, apparently noticing his indecision on which emotion to go with. “It… it wasn’t like that.”

“You have no idea how much he meant to me…” he said, more coldly than he’d intended.

“Yes, I do… because you told me. Reno, I’m so sorry. I felt awful when it happened. I still feel awful every time I think about it. I was just trying to cheer you up a little, and it ended up being probably the cruelest thing I possibly could have done…”

“… Don’t. Move,” he ground out, before standing and stalking off, disappearing into his bedroom. Reno forced himself to to breathe, trying to let go of the anger and the hurt. This had happened… well, he wasn’t sure how long ago, really… months, at the very least, given that he received the new bunny for Christmas and they were now well into spring. Obviously he’d found a reason to forgive the young woman… though he was having a difficult time guessing what that reason was at the moment. He ran a hand through his hair, trying to decide what to do…

Right now, what he wanted to do was scream at her. He’d only barelystopped himself from doing just that a moment ago, and only then because she’d looked so frightened and remorseful it had caught him slightly off guard and given him a moment of pause. The little bunny stared at him, almost reproachfully, from the bed, and he snatched it from the pillow it sat on, glaring at it. It wasn’t even an especially well-made toy, he noted, with a sneer. The stitching was uneven in places and head was slightly too big for the body. Not that Mr. Foo-foo had been particularly fancy himself, but this looked like something that had come out of a Sector 1 sweatshop.

‘That’s because she made it for you, you idiot.’

He blinked in surprise. He wasn’t sure where the thought had suddenly come from… but he knew almost instantly that it was true. Reno flipped the bunny over, looking at it more closely. The stitching had definitely been done by hand. He’d done enough amateurish self-repairs of torn clothing back in the day to recognize that much. He felt his fury quickly deflate after that… Elena had taken the time to make something that was as close to what he’d lost as she could. He ran a finger along the edge one of the little ears that stood up on top of its head. One of Mr. Foo-foo’s had accidentally been torn off and inexpertly sewn back on years ago… it had always flopped over backwards after that.

The redhead sighed and turned back to the door, calmer now, though still more than slightly upset by Elena’s unexpected confession… though not so much at her. Mostly he was just sad over the loss. He set the bunny back on the pillow, then thought better of it and took it with him, returning to the kitchen.

He very nearly laughed when he did. His poor rookie almost looked as though she’d taken him literally, and hadn’t moved a muscle the entire time he’d been gone. He took a seat across from her, setting the bunny down next to his plate.

“You can move now,” he said, forcing himself to keep a straight face.

“H-how mad at me are you?” she asked, nervously, though, he noted, she still seemed half-frozen, as though any sudden movements might be hazardous in spite of his permission to end her impromptu impression of a statue.

“I’m not…” Reno sighed, “Not really. I mean, I am… but not at you so much as the universe in general for givin’ me such shitty luck sometimes…”

Elena seemed to relax at that statement. “I really am sorry, Reno…”

“You made me this one, didn’t you…” It was more a statement than a question, and the rookie nodded.

“I wanted it to be special.”

This was getting to be a lot more… intense… than the friendly dinner date he’d envisioned. Neither of them were having much fun at this point, and frankly, he didn’t want to spend the whole evening dwelling on guilt and an accident he couldn’t do anything about. It was time to change tactics…

“… Ya know… I never eat at the fuckin’ table when I’m on my own. Come on. Grab your plate and let’s go sit on the couch. It’s more comfortable.” He didn’t wait for a reply before picking up his own plate, along with the remaining photos, and heading into the living room. Elena followed, a little uncertainly. He took a bite as she joined him, picked up then next photo on the pile. “So… how ’bout this one?”

The rookie studied it, brow furrowed, and for a moment, Reno thought that perhaps even she couldn’t place it. It was admittedly kind of an odd one. The pair of them were propped up against one another, side by side, in the back seat of what had to have been Tseng’s car… which he only recognized because of the five-point harnesses in place of the standard seatbelts. He was pretty sure Rufus had added them to the customizations as a not-so-subtle dig at the Turk leader’s infamous tendency towards breaking the speed limit on most roads by a factor of three or so any time he was in a hurry. He and Elena looked to be sound asleep… but the truly bizarre aspect of the photo was his own hair. Instead of the bright, fiery red he was used to seeing, it was a deep, sapphire blue. Elena suddenly groaned.

“Oh. My. God.” She shook her head. “I’m going to kill Rude if he took any other pictures of this…”

“Why? And what the hell happened to my hair?”

Elena sniggered. “I snuck temporary dye into your shampoo… It worked really, really well.”

“… Why would you do that?” the redhead asked, indignantly.

“Because YOU put so much cayenne pepper, and Shiva only knows what else, in my sandwich at lunch, that after one bite, I thought my mouth had caught fire! I looked like I was having some kind of psychotic episode in the middle of the cafeteria, and you just sat there, laughing hysterically! I couldn’t taste anything for the rest of the day, you jerk!”

Reno grinned widely. Yeah… that sounded like something he’d do.

“Aw, so I played a little joke on ya. Looks like ya got me back. Why so upset about a commemorative photo?”

“Because this had to have been taken after Tseng and Rude played a joke on both of us. Those two bastards knocked us out, took us to a hotel, and left us there… naked… in bed together. Then they just waited for us to wake up and freak out.”

Reno blinked in confusion. “Why would that freak us out? I thought we were dating…”

“This was way before any of that. I’d only been a Turk for a couple of months… and I still really didn’t like you very much.”

“You… didn’t like me?” the redhead asked, sounding somewhat hurt. Elena giggled and shook her head in the negative.

“You were such an asshole to me… right from the beginning, too! I hadn’t even walked into the building yet before you started in on me. You went out of your way to make me feel uncomfortable or incompetent or just plain stupid. All the time. You were relentless…”

Reno suddenly felt more than a little disgusted with himself. He was a lot of things, but he’d never been a bully. Least of all toward a woman, and, of all people, one he was supposed to be training. There were few things he hated more than seeing someone of the fairer sex mistreated… and it sickened him that he’d done something like that. Elena’s arms slid around him as she moved closer.

“It wasn’t because you wanted to…” she said, easily interpreting the look on his face. The rookie laid her head on his chest, hugging him tightly. “I let people push me around too easy… You wanted me to stand up for myself. So, for awhile, you did things that forced me to.”

“And even after all that, we still somehow ended up together?” he replied with an incredulous laugh.

Her lips lightly grazed his cheek. “You’ve made it up to me a hundred times over.”

“How do ya make up for tormenting someone on a daily basis, for weeks on end?”

“Months,” she corrected him, with a soft laugh, “And you did it by finally being yourself…” She kissed him again, not so fleetingly this time, her soft lips somewhat timidly finding his. The rookie pulled back just enough to look at him. “The real you is a very sweet person…”

Dear Ifrit, her eyes were beautiful… They were honey-colored and full of life and laughter, and he found himself momentarily mesmerized, lost in her gaze.

‘Just fuckin’ kiss her already, dumbass…’

He wasn’t quite sure when his inner monologue had become so self-insulting… but he decided to listen to it. It seemed to have a far better grasp of what was going on than he did at the moment, anyway. Reno’s fingers found their way to the back of her neck, lightly coaxing her forward again, his lips meeting hers.

It was almost electric. But more than that, it was tantalizingly familiar, like some half-remembered dream that danced just beyond his reach… and he wanted more. He wanted everything that faint familiarity so teasingly promised him. Before he even realized what he was doing, he’d let himself lay back, dropping down onto the couch, and pulling her along with him without ever breaking the kiss. Elena seemed just as eager as he was, and he couldn’t help but be amazed at how unbelievably right this felt with her.

But there still remained that one annoying detail that tugged at his sense of morality.

He finally pulled away, panting softly, surprised at just how much one little kiss had affected him. “Wait…” he managed. The rookie obligingly paused in her efforts, though it was clear she didn’t really want to stop quite yet.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothin’… just… my head might not remember you, but the rest of me sure as fuck seems to. We keep this up and one of two things is gonna have to happen in the next few minutes. Either we take this into the bedroom, or I’m gonna need a really cold shower. Up to you…”

Elena smiled slightly and leaned forward, nuzzling his throat and drawing a quiet moan from the redhead. “Bedroom it is, then…” she replied.

---

He could only stare.

She was so… perfect. He could watch her sleep for hours. And, more to the point, she was his. Propped up on one elbow, he leaned over her. Reno let the backs of his fingers glide along her check, barely touching her. Just enough contact to feel the softness of her skin. He’d never know how he’d managed to get so lucky.

His heart twisted at that thought. It wasn’t just figurative… there was a very real possibility that he might never know. Because as beautiful as she was, and as right as everything felt with her… everything that had been between them was still missing. He’d been in love with this woman, for Ifrit’s sake! And now… well, he certainly couldn’t say with any honesty that he felt nothing for her. He couldn’t remember ever having wanted someone that badly in his life, and it had absolutely nothing to do with his amnesia.

But love? He was almost ashamed to admit, even to himself, that no… he wasn’t in love. There was a definite attraction… the woman sexy and very willing. And stunning. Especially like this, satiated and sleeping, looking so utterly peaceful and content. No matter how he tried, though, he couldn’t find that connection everyone kept insisting had been there before.

Reno’s fingers twisted into the bedsheets, clenching the fabric tight in his hand. Why was everything in his life so fucking hard? Nothing had ever been handed to him. Nothing had ever been easy. He’d fought for the life he had, and paid for it in blood and sacrifice. And now a part of it… a part that was gradually seeming more and more desperately important… had been stripped from him. It was like there was some cosmic puppet master who enjoyed watching him struggle and suffer for its own sick amusement, all the while dangling something irresistible in front of him to keep propelling him forward.

Frustrated tears threatened break free, and had to force himself to take a breath, blinking rapidly to stop them. It wasn’t fair! He’d never even realized how much he wanted something like this. He’d always thought he could be perfectly content with the multitude of options the Shinra secretarial pool availed to him and his random hookups he hardly had to try for, decrying any real emotional connection as superfluous.

But somehow, he didn’t think he could keep her without that connection. Oh, sure… he could treat her like a goddess, and say all the right things, and she might even be happy with that. For awhile. Even so, it felt painfully dishonest to him, if he couldn’t actually feel what he’d felt before… and he really wasn’t sure whether or not he could. He was intimately familiar with being in lust with someone. Being in love, on the other hand… that was totally foreign.

“Reno?”

She was looking up at him, suddenly awake, eyes watching him in the moonlight.

He made the mistake of letting a quiet sob escape. There was no stopping it after that. Elena pulled him tight against her, guiding his head down onto her chest, and tenderly petting his hair, doing what she could to comfort him.

“I want it back,” he managed to get out before frustration and self-pity finally got the better of him, leaving him sobbing against the warm softness of her bare skin.

---

“… You look like hell.”

“Feel like it, too,” Reno replied, his voice muffled. He was sitting at his desk, head resting on his arms. He didn’t remember much of anything after he’d finally broken down last night… but he had a hell of a headache, and didn’t feel well-rested at all, so he could only assume he’d actually cried himself to sleep. Which was… embarrassing, to say the least. Thankfully, Elena had been kind enough not to bring it up that morning, though she hadn’t left until she was satisfied that he would be alright on his own. She’d even made him breakfast.

He was almost shocked she’d stayed at all. He knew he’d been a mess… If it’d been him in the rookie’s position, he’d have been sorely tempted to sneak out at the first opportunity rather than deal with someone else’s pain.

“How much?”

Reno looked up, somewhat blearily. “How much what?” Normally, Rude didn’t have to elaborate on questions like that… the redhead knew him well enough that he could pick up on what he meant fairly easily. But right now, his focus really wasn’t what it should be.

“How much did you have to drink last night? You look like you crawled out of one bar and into another. Three or four times.”

“I’m not hungover,” he muttered, finally deigning to lift his head off of his arms and sit up, “I almost wishI were hungover. I’d probably feel significantly less shitty and humiliated than I do right now.”

“… Something happened with Elena.” More of an observation than an inquiry.

The redhead snorted a soft laugh… and instantly regretted it when it briefly made his already throbbing head feel like it was going to explode. “Oh, yeah… somethin’ happened, alright…” he replied, somewhat sardonically, “And it was fucking amazing… and then it all went to shit.” He let his head drop back into his arms with a groan.

“…” Rude stood and walked over to him, resting a hand between his shoulder blades.

“Why am I torturin’ myself like this, Rude? She likes me… She wants me. And I’m too hung up on maybe never bein’ able to remember all the shit I forgot to just accept it and enjoy the ride.”

And that was just one of his problems. Granted, at the moment, it seemed like the biggest, but there were other consequences of losing two years’ worth of memories beyond his love life. It had occurred to him, suddenly, on the drive into the office. There were likely contacts he couldn’t remember, arrangements he didn’t know he’d made, and countless other details that were recorded nowhere but his own head. His little collection of shady characters that owed him favors paled in comparison to Rude’s network of informants, but they were just as valuable. But unlike Rude, he didn’t keep a physical record of them… and his memory was two years out of date. It, simply put, made him a far less effective Turk, and the anxiety that realization had started to generate was rapidly becoming hard to ignore.

Added to that, was the fact that physically, he may have been fine… Mentally, though? Between the amnesia and the rapidly spiraling anxiety, even he was beginning to wonder if he was really fit for duty… and that thought scared the hell out of him, because if he couldn’t be a Turk, then what was he?

“How the fuck am I s’posed to function like this?!” he finally shouted.

“… Alright… That’s enough.” Rude hauled the redhead out of his seat, and hoisted him over a shoulder.

“H-hey! What the fuck’re you doin’?” the younger Turk protested, irritation quickly supplanting inner turmoil for a moment. “Ya know, just ’cause I’m smaller than you and you can carry me around like a fuckin’ sack of mimett greens doesn’t mean I fuckin’ enjoy it!” He squirmed, trying to free himself, but Rude seemed far more determined than usual to hold him in place. He couldn’t get any leverage.

“Just relax.”

“Tch… Relax? This isn’t exactly comfortable, ya know… Put me the fuck down!”

By then, they were halfway down the hallway.

“What’s going on?” a familiar voice asked, and Reno tried unsuccessfully to twist towards the source.

“Boss! Thank Ifrit. Tell this asshole to let go of me!”

“Rude?” Tseng questioned, and Reno could quite clearly picture the inquisitory expression he almost certainly now wore… even if he couldn’t see it.

“Intervention. Taking him to Ward,” the bald Turk replied.

“Ah. Carry on, then.”

Reno scowled at the wall… the wall being the only thing currently in his range of vision. “Fuck you both,” he muttered in defeat as Rude continued toward the elevator. As the doors closed, he caught sight of Tseng at last, watching the pair of them, concerned.

---

Justinia Ward looked up in surprise as the two Turks walked into the medical suite. Well… one was walking. The other was being carried, and swearing up a storm. She sighed softly and shook her head, wondering why she hadn’t expected this.

“Well? What’s wrong with yeh now?” she asked, as Rude deposited the angry redhead on her exam table. She studied him a moment as she waited for his answer. Bloodshot eyes glared back at her, giving her at least some insight. He clearly hadn’t slept well. She suspected, though, there was a bit more to it than simple insomnia.

“He’s driving himself crazy,” Rude answered for him, and the redhead turned his glare on the other man.

“That so? Alright… I’ll look him over. Yeh go on back ta work and leave him ta me.”

“Don’t I get a fucking say in any of this?” her petulant patient snapped. She bit back a laugh… She always marveled a bit as just how different Reno could be when he was out of sorts. He was almost a different person entirely.

“Language! And no, not with a head injury yeh don’t.”

“Sure you don’t want me to stick around?” Rude asked, the question directed at her rather than the redhead. Ward shook her head and waved him off.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve been wrangling this little troublemaker for more than a decade. We both know he’s all bark and no bite around me. I’ll manage just fine.”

She’d become accustomed to the young man’s snappish protests long ago. Reno liked to whine and moan and swear, but in the end he trusted her far more than he cared to admit, and would do as he was told. It had become something of a ritual by now. Rude finally withdrew, casting one more glance back at his partner before disappearing through the door.

“I’m –”

“Yer obviously not fine, so don’t yeh try and sell me on that nonsense. I know yeh too well ta fall for it,” she said, neatly cutting him off before he could even get the words out. “Now… what’s been going on since I last saw yeh?” Ward stood in front of him, and drew a small penlight from the pocket of her lab coat, clicking it on, and shining it into the redhead’s eyes. The pupils contracted sharply in response… a perfectly normal reaction. Reno flinched.

“Gah… little warning, huh, Doc?!”

“If I warned yeh, yeh’d just complain more and yeh know it,” she teased. She lifted a hand to the back of his head, gingerly probing the lump that still remained from the blow he’d taken. It had gone down considerably, but judging by the way the redhead tensed, it was still a bit tender. “Off with the jacket.”

Reno grudgingly obeyed the command, and Ward rolled up his sleeve to take his blood pressure. As she’d suspected, it was a little elevated.

“Nothing ta say then?”

“Tch… Whatdya wanna hear? Unless you can get my memory back, there’s fuck all you can do,” he replied, looking away from her.

“Oh, for Shiva’s sake…” Ward sighed, and didn’t bother scolding him for swearing this time, “It hasn’t even been forty-eight hours yet, and yeh’ve already started obsessing about this being permanent, haven’t yeh? Probably got yerself so worked up over it yeh couldn’t sleep last night. I told yeh… head injuries can be tricky things. Hard ta predict, and a bit slow ta heal.”

“So… it might still not be?” the redhead asked, tentatively. “But… I tried everything I could think of to get somethin’ to pull me outta this. Just ended up cryin’ on Elena’s shoulder all night…” The doctor had to work very hard at not rolling her eyes out of pure frustration.

“Yeh didn’t hear a word I said to yeh the other day, did yeh? I should’ve known yeh were paying more attention ta getting out of that hospital bed than yeh were ta me.”

Reno stared for a moment, clearly trying to recall whatever it was he’d been told. Ward chuckled softly and decided to help him out.

“What I told yeh was that there’s a fair bit of evidence of a concussion. Not a serious one, mind yeh, but enough that I’m not surprised you’re having some symptoms of it. Now, I’ll grant yeh, memory loss is a fairly dramatic symptom, particularly given that the injury is so minor, but that’s no reason to think that once the concussion resolves itself yer memories won’t come back. In the mean time, being in familiar places and around familiar people might speed things along and trigger latent memories to surface… and I’ll wager that last bit’s the only bit that yeh managed ta latch onta.”

“So you’re sayin’ it’s not permanent…” he breathed.

“I’m sayin’ it’s still too early to say anything for sure. But yer young and healthy and yeh heal quick. It might take some time, but no… If I had ta bet on it, I don’t think this’ll be permanent.”

The look of relief on his face was so pronounced, she couldn’t help herself.

“Oh, come here, my little headache…” Ward said, pulling him into a comforting embrace, one that he happily leaned into. “Poor thing… Yeh’d started ta work yerself inta a panic, hadn’t yeh?” She released him a moment later, with a small smile. “If yeh were that worried, why in the wide world didn’t yeh just come see me first thing this morning so I could set yeh straight?”

The redhead blushed faintly. “I didn’t think there was anything you could do…”

“Oh, so why bother asking for any help at all, then, is that it? Yeh daft thing. I’ve half a mind ta send yeh home for the day ta make up for the sleep yeh clearly didn’t get last night…” she said, lightly chastising him, and smirked at the slightly horrified expression that crossed his features at the threat, “… but that’d probably just drive yeh stir-crazy.”

“Don’t fuck with me right now, Doc. I’ve had a rough mornin’…”

“Watch that language. If I have ta warn yeh again, there’ll be no treat for yeh,” Ward said, sternly. As much as she hated to deny him, she always followed through when he slipped up… if she didn’t, he’d just start to ignore the threats eventually.

And beyond her personal distaste for swearing, threatening to take away something he wanted was useful in ways beyond making the little redhead do as he was told. When he was concentrating on not swearing – a habit that was equally, if not more ingrained in him than her own disapproval of it – he wasn’t worrying quite so much about other things, like needle sticks or memory loss. It also settled him down and helped to curb his hyperactive nature… and it was just as effective now as it had been when he was a teenager.

The doctor smirked slightly to herself. And the boy thought Tseng was sneaky…

“Now, tell me something. Yeh said yeh tried a few things ta encourage yer memory ta cough something up for yeh. Did yeh have any luck at all?”

“Not really…” the redhead sighed, shoulders sagging.

“Not really? That didn’t quite sound like a ‘no’…”

“I don’t know… It wasn’t like I could remember anything specific. Just… certain things felt familiar. Like when I kissed Elena. And… when we were in bed together. That was definitely somethin’ I’ve done before. And I don’t mean just in general.”

Ward’s eyebrow rose. “Well, now… I knew the two of yeh were close, but I hadn’t realized yeh were quite that close. Seems I need ta do a better job of keeping up on company gossip…”

“Heh… Don’t worry. I don’t think you’re that out of the loop. Apparently it hasn’t been goin’ on very long…”

“That’s a good sign, then, I’d say, if yer remembering something relatively recent. Means those memories are likely intact… just inaccessible. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised yeh’d remember sensations before things like events and people. Yeh’ve always been the tactile sort. So… do yeh feel a bit better now?”

Reno gave a soft laugh. “Yeah, Doc. I kinda do…”

“Good. Then yeh’ll be wanting this, I suppose,” Ward said, holding out a purple sucker. The redhead grinned, and took it. The piece of candy never stood a chance at that point. It was stripped of its wrapper and in his mouth before the doctor even had time to draw her hand back. “Right… off with yeh, now. I’ll be checking in on yeh later this afternoon ta make sure yer still doing alright… and don’t yeh bother arguing with me. Yeh know perfectly well there’s no point in it,” she said, before he could protest.

“… Fine…” the redhead grudgingly muttered. “Uh… Doc?”

“Yes?”

“You’re… not gonna mention me hugging ya to Rude, right? ‘Cause he’s seriously never gonna let me hear the end of it if you do…”

---

“There’s just no way…”

“…”

“Well, there isn’t! I mean… can you see anything that might give us a chance against that… that stupid potato?” Elena spat in frustration. By now, they’d given up all pretense of referring to the Proud Clod by its proper name. Mostly out of spite.

Tseng had been unsuccessful in convincing Heidegger to postpone… which mean that in another two hours, she and Rude – as Tseng had been equally as unsuccessful in convincing Ward to lift his medical restriction early – were going to be face to face with Scarlet’s new heavy armor.

“And where’s Reno? He’s supposed to be helping us with this…”

She hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the redhead since she’d left his apartment early that morning. In truth, she’d been a little reluctant to leave him at all. Last night, which had started out so promisingly, had ended up being terrible… She’d never seen him so broken before, and there had been nothing she could do to help. She was almost afraid she might have made things worse for him.

“Medical,” Rude replied, flipping to the second page of schematics and looking them over yet again.

“What?!” Elena shrieked, alarmed. The other Turk actually jumped in response to the sheer volume of her voice and grimaced.

“Don’t worry… He’s alright. Just needed some of Ward’s special brand of hand-holding.”

The rookie blinked, not quite sure what he was talking about. “… I don’t… What do you mean?”

“He needed her to remind him that he’s an idiot,” Rude said with a slight smirk.

“And again… fuck you, partner,” the aforementioned redhead interjected from the doorway. The two Turks swiveled in their chairs, turning to face the newcomer.

“Better?” Rude asked. Reno promptly rolled his eyes.

“Yeah.” He walked around the table and took a seat across from them. “… and… ya know… thanks. So… you guys make any progress on this shit while I was gone?”

“… No.”

“There are just no weaknesses,” Elena elaborated, watching the redhead closely. At the very least he looked a lot calmer than he’d been when they’d parted ways. “Are you sure you’re okay? What did Ward do?”

“Basically told me I’m an idiot,” he replied, grinning. Rude snorted softly.

“Told you so,” he said, looking at Elena askance somewhat smugly.

“What? … I was a little stressed out. Ward smacked some sense into me, and I’m all good now. Movin’ on…”

Rude chuckled softly. “Stressed out. Try neurotic.” Reno glared at him and Elena shook her head.

“How do you just get completely over something that quickly?”

“Not a big deal,” he replied, with a shrug, “I was just lettin’ my imagination run a little wild’s all.”

“In other words, he’s not really over it,” Rude clarified, “He’s just not panicking over one of his worst fears anymore.”

“Pushin’ it, Rude…” the redhead cautioned. The bald Turk gave him a slight nod of acknowledgment and obligingly went back to the schematics. Reno grabbed one of the pages, pulling it towards himself to look over.

“Your worst fear?” Elena pressed, and she was pretty sure she saw him cringe.

“Can we just drop it for now? I don’t need a fuckin’ therapy session, and you two have a sparring match with the armored potato pretty soon.”

“O-okay… I guess,” she said hesitantly, though she was still curious. She knew of plenty of things Reno was afraid of… though none of them seemed like legitimate fodder for a ‘worst fear’. She’d actually always kind of assumed that losing a part of their little family was what he feared most. It certainly terrified her. But apparently, there were other things that were just as bad… at least from Reno’s point of view. “But I don’t really know what else we can do. We’ve been over these diagrams so many times, I can hardly see straight.”

Reno looked up at here, eyes wide. A moment later he returned his gaze to the schematic.

“Say that again?”

“What?”

“What you just said.”

“What? All I said was –”

“That you can hardly see straight…” the redhead finished, looking up again, this time with a wide grin. “Fuck… I’m an idiot.”

“Thought we already established that,” Rude teased.

“Shut it,” Reno shot back, the smile on his face never wavering, “And I fuckin’ mean it. I really am an idiot. It’s been starin’ me in the face this whole time.”

“What has?” Elena prodded.

“They got two pilots… We got two Turks.” He flipped the page he’d been looking at around so they could see it. It showed the Proud Clod’s cockpit. “I fuckin’ missed it completely. Just look at this shit. The way the controls are set up.”

“Half of it’s been redacted… What am I supposed to be looking at?” the rookie asked, thoroughly lost as her eyes scanned the page. The Turk beside her, however, didn’t seem to share her confusion.

“There’s no way she’d do that… There’d be no fallback,” Rude said, incredulously. He lifted his sunglasses and leaned forward to get a better look.

“I think she did… because the thing’s so fuckin’ big and the armor creates such a fuckin’ massive blindspot.”

Elena pulled the schematic closer to her and stared. Whatever the two of them were getting so excited about, she just wasn’t seeing it.

“Okay… I give up,” she finally said, defeated.

“Look at the controls, ‘Lena… they’re not facin’ forward. They’re angled towards opposite sides,” Reno replied, pointing at the diagram. “I’m pretty fuckin’ sure this isn’t a pilot/co-pilot setup, like our helicopter. This is made for two independent pilots workin’ in tandem.”

“Two pilots that can never see everything the other one sees because of the blindspots the armor around the cockpit creates,” Rude added.

“W-wait… So… One pilot controls one side…”

“And the other controls the other side,” Reno finished for her. “We don’t have to beat the potato… we just have to beat the pilots.”

“Hmph… divide and conquer,” said Rude, “I like it.”

“Heh… well, now that we have somethin’ to actually work with, how ’bout we get some lunch before we hash out a plan of attack?”

Rude gathered the pages of the schematics and rolled them. “How about we take these with us and hash out a plan of attack over lunch?”

“‘Long as lunch is involved somewhere…”

Elena gave them both a roll of her eyes, but quickly followed them out the door. She’d taken only a few steps, though, when she stopped short, jaw dropping slightly in realization. A moment later a smile spread across her face.

Reno had called her ‘Lena.

---

Elena checked the clip in her gun for the third time. Still full.

“Relax, will ya? You’re makin’ me nervous and I’m not even fightin’ the thing.”

“You’re certain of this plan?” Tseng asked.

“Certain as we can be,” Reno answered, “I mean… all we have to go off of is a bunch of half-redacted diagrams. Best guess, Boss.”

“I suppose that will have to do. Heidegger has agreed to partially disable the Proud Clod’s weaponry in the interest of not maiming anyone. This is only test, after all. The miniguns and materia cannon will not be used, and the laser weapons will be at minimal power. I would point out, however, that it’s several times bigger than either of you… More than capable of causing damage even without its weapons.”

“Noted,” Rude replied, flexing his fingers inside his favorite pair of gloves.

“Just keep movin’. The more time they spend trackin’ you, the less time they have to target you. Keep ahead of ’em and look for an opening.”

“I just wish I knew what I was looking for an opening to do,” said Elena, “We can avoid it all day… but we may still never see a way to disable it.”

“Remember… you’re not tryin’ to disable it. You’re tryin’ to put on a good show, and prove the armored potato isn’t as perfect as Scarlet thinks it is. If you happen to get an opportunity to do some damage, take it, but don’t let yourself get too focused on that. It’ll just get ya hurt.”

Elena nodded, and checked her clip again.

“Good luck,” Tseng added, “And be careful.”

The pair of injured Turks retreated to the small viewing gallery some twenty feet above the demonstration arena’s floor, leaving Elena and Rude to wait for the Proud Clod.

“What do you think their chances are?” the Turk leader asked.

“Of not endin’ up in the hospital? Pretty good, if we’re right about this,” Reno replied. “Of actually beatin’ the thing? Yeah… not so great.”

Tseng studied his second in command for a moment. “Are you worried?”

“‘Course I’m worried. That’s my best friend down there… and my rookie.”

“She’s still just your rookie, then…”

“‘Til somethin’ changes… yeah.” Reno looked over at his mentor and sighed. “You have no idea how bad I wanna remember everything about her, Boss… but I can’t. And I can’t pretend that I feel somethin’ I don’t, either. It’s not fair to her. Ward thinks things’ll fix themselves eventually… but there’s still a chance they might not. I don’t want to get her hopes up too much and end up leadin’ her on. ‘Least no more than I already have…”

“You speak as though you’re afraid you can’t feel anything for her if you can’t remember her,” Tseng chuckled softly, “Somehow I think that, even if you had to start over, you would eventually end up in exactly the same place. In fact, I think you would actually have to try very hard not to.”

Reno’s eyebrow rose in surprise. “I really got it that bad for her?”

Tseng laughed outright this time. “Worse than you can imagine.”

---

The heavy metal doors in front of them inched open with a mechanical hum, and Elena half-expected a dramatic whoosh of smoke to accompany the Proud Clod into the arena. Instead, the huge robotic armor simply lumbered forward, coming to a stop a few yards in front of them. She glanced up at the cockpit.

“Rude…”

“Hmm… Didn’t expect that.”

Scarlet sat, smiling viciously… and Elena had the distinct impression that it was aimed squarely at her. But that wasn’t what had caught her by surprise. Heidegger was seated next to her.

“Let’s skip the pleasantries and get right to it, shall we?” Scarlet’s voice called down to them, and her fellow pilot laughed, obviously amused. The next thing Elena knew, the Proud Clod’s arm had been raised, and was poised to come crashing down… right on top of her. The rookie gasped and dove to her left, away from Rude and the Proud Clod, falling into an awkward roll and springing back to her feet with little time to spare before the arm swung towards her along the ground. She dodged it… barely… and scrambled to move into one of the blindspots so she could regroup.

Meanwhile, Rude had taken off in the opposite direction, drawing Heidegger’s attention. The arm he controlled hit the ground ahead of him, blocking him, and Rude heard the soft whine of one of the Proud Clod’s laser’s energizing. Instead of retreating… which, he assumed, was what Heidegger was expecting him to do, he charged, hitting the ground and rolling directly between the armor’s legs.

“She’s out to get me!” Elena panted as he got to his feet not far from her. It wasn’t surprising, he mused to himself… Scarlet could hold a grudge like nobody’s business, and Elena had pissed her off royally not that long ago.

“Switch sides,” he replied, and darted off into Scarlet’s range of vision instead of Heidegger’s.

---

“… What the hell’s Scarlet tryin’ ta do?!” Reno shouted, jumping to his feet. The rookie’d had two narrow misses already, and the executive wasn’t giving her a moment’s peace. Tseng stood as well, looking out grimly at the spectacle, and watched as Elena and Rude swapped positions.

“Scarlet… dislikes Elena,” he replied, and Reno couldn’t help but notice the deep note of concern in his voice.

“That’s dislikin’ someone? Fuck, she coulda killed her with that first move if ‘Lena had been a little slower!” A laser blast from Heidegger’s half of the weapon sent Elena scurrying for cover, but unlike his fellow executive, he didn’t continue to dog her as she recovered and returned fire. The bullets bounced, ineffectively, off the thick armor plating. “What the hell’s she got against her?!”

“The two of you were assigned to her as security escorts. Elena did something we’ve all wanted to do for quite some time, and Scarlet was… shall we say, less than pleased. I think there’s a fair amount of jealousy involved as well.”

The Proud Clod swung around, and Tseng could clearly see the expression of surprise on Heidegger’s face. The armored machine staggered awkwardly as he tried to compensate for the unexpected change in direction. More laser fire was directed at the rookie, this time from Scarlet’s half… and it didn’t let up.

“This has gone quite far enough. Scarlet is trying to injure her at this point,” he said removing his PHS from the inner pocket of his jacket, and dialing Heidegger’s number. The executive had grudgingly agreed to allow the Wutaiian Turk to call an end to the exercise if the safety of his personnel was at risk. And it was most certainly at risk right now. Heidegger, however, seemed too preoccupied trying to keep up with Scarlet’s relentless targeting of the younger woman to answer.

It was becoming painfully clear to the redhead that Elena was beginning to tire, and when she landed badly after vaulting over the massive metal arm that had just landed in front of her, his breath caught in his throat. It was only due to Rude being close enough to push her out of the way that the leg that swept in behind her missed. Unfortunately, it did make contact with him. It was a glancing blow, but enough to send him flying. The unlucky Turk landed hard on his back several yards away, the wind obviously knocked out of him.

Reno didn’t stop to think about what he was doing. He hopped the railing and let himself drop the twenty feet to the arena floor, hitting the ground running.

“Reno!” Tseng’s voice called out behind him, alarmed. He ignored it. Scarlet had the rookie in her sights again, and it was clear she was hurt. Rude was forcing himself to his feet, but he wasn’t going to be able to save the woman a second time. The redhead ran for her, full-tilt, tackling Elena and forcing her out of the path of the oncoming appendage. The pair of them rolled to a stop, Reno on top of her, shielding her… though he wasn’t sure what kind of protection he would have to offer if Scarlet just decided to take them both out.

He didn’t have to wonder about it long, however. A loud crash echoed throughout the demonstration room and when he turned to look over his shoulder, the Proud Clod was lying on it’s back. Rude joined the two of them moments later.

“What happened?” Reno panted.

“She tired to follow you, and Heidegger couldn’t keep up. Thing tripped over its own two feet,” the other Turk replied, joining him in helping Elena up. “You both okay?”

The rookie winced as she tried to put some weight on her ankle and found it entirely too tender. “I’ve been better… but I think I’ll live.”

“You stupid cow! What did you think you were doing?!” Heidegger’s voice boomed from the direction of the fallen weapon.

“Me?! This is all your fault, you worthless hunk of lard!”

“Oh, go shove it up your ass, Scarlet… I have half a mind to –”

“Half a mind? If you had a quarter of a mind, I’d consider it a vast improvement!”

Reno look over at his partner. “Uh… Think we oughta do somethin’?”

“No,” Tseng interjected in a disgusted tone, finally having made his own way into the arena and towards the little group. “We’re done here. Let those two idiots sort it out.”

Reno snickered softly. “Hey Rude? Did I get hit on the head again?”

“Don’t think so… why?” the bald Turk asked, one eyebrow rising being the dark lenses of his sunglasses.

“‘Cause I coulda sworn I just heard the boss refer to a couple of executives as idiots when said idiots are well within earshot…” he said, grinning as he lifted Elena off of her feet, prepared to carry the injured rookie. Her arms wrapped securely around his neck in response.

“I very seriously doubt they’re paying any attention to us… and in this instance, I feel it’s justified, regardless,” the Turk leader replied, without a trace of joviality. “Let’s go. Elena needs medical attention, and personally, I have no desire to listen to them argue any longer than I have to.”

---

“Three of yeh. There are only four of yeh to begin with and three of yeh are now on medical restriction.” Ward shook her head and finished wrapping Elena’s ankle. It wasn’t broken, but it was the same ankle she had recently injured while running, which had resulted in a fresh sprain on top of barely healed damage. It hurt quite a bit more than the earlier injury, too. She’d been banned from putting any weight on it for at least a few days… not that she was enough of a masochist to even try at the moment. “What am I ta do with the lot of yeh?” The doctor looked directly at the rookie. “Stay off it. I mean it. Ice it, keep it elevated as much as possible, and we’ll reevaluate on Monday.”

“Come on, Doc… it’s not like any of us get hurt on purpose,” Reno retorted, “S’pecially since it means seein’ more of you…”

“Oh, suddenly yeh don’t enjoy my company?” the doctor replied with a teasing smile. “Yeh seemed quite friendly this morning…”

Elena held back a giggle as the redhead seemed to be rendered somewhat speechless before subtly shaking his head, eyes flickering towards Rude and Tseng, who stood on the other side of the room locked in their own conversation. She wondered just was it was he didn’t want them to know about… The doctor chuckled.

“Speaking of which…” she continued, and Reno’s eyes widened slightly, “How are yeh feeling by now?” The rookie snickered behind her hand when he suddenly relaxed… apparently he’d expected the elderly woman to reveal whatever it was he was hiding.

“Fine.”

The doctor huffed and tugged the rookie’s pant leg down over the wrap. “Fine, he says…” she said, rolling her eyes. “I don’t really expect yeh ta say yes at this stage, but have yeh been able ta remember anything?”

“Nah… Still nothin’.”

“That’s not true…” Elena interjected. Reno looked up at her curiously.

“What are you talkin’ about?”

She grinned slightly. “You finally stopped calling me Elena. Right after you came back from the medical suite this morning. I’m ‘Lena again. You’ve been doing it for hours.”

The redhead blinked. “I have?”

“I believe she may be right about that…” Tseng said, wandering over with Rude in tow. “And I’m rather embarrassed to admit that I hadn’t really noticed it either, until she pointed it out. I suppose I’ve simply grown accustomed to you doing so.”

Reno glanced questioningly at Dr. Ward. “Yeh see? I told yeh you were worryin’ yerself sick over nothing. It’s just going ta take a little time, that’s all. Now… one of yeh, and I really don’t care which… take this poor girl home so she can put her feet up and rest that ankle.”

“Can I?” the redhead asked, turning to Elena. “I promise not to make a complete ass of myself this time…”

“Absolutely…” she laughed.

~fin~