"It was a stupid idea in the first place," Elena said, arms crossed against her chest, as Reno closed the door behind him. "Acting like normal people. Honestly, what gives us the right?" She slumped back against the wall, watching him as he crossed to the bed and started piling everything that he'd unpacked the night before into his battered bag.

"Sarcasm gets us nowhere," he admonished, throwing a shirt and one the journals Tseng had bought back into his bag. "Shouldn't have brought us out in the open in the first place, Tseng was right."

"Doesn't mean you didn't have the right idea, either," Elena insisted. "We're human, we can't just keep running forever."

"We're not human, we're the Turks," Reno reminded her. Elena snorted, and Reno glared at her. "It's true," he said.

"The Turks are human too, Reno, or had you forgotten," Elena shot back, "that the whole reason we're running in the first place is that we're just as able to die as every other human being? That there's nothing elite about how we're living on this planet anymore? Nobody's gonna save our asses this time, Reno. Nobody but me, myself, and I, and that goes for each and every one of us."

"What happened to 'we're in this for each other?" Reno asked tiredly. "What happened to your high ideals of teamwork and the four crusaders?" He finished packing his stuff away, and, walking over to Elena's side of the bed, starting pushing her things into his bag as well.

"You know perfectly well that's not what I meant," Elena said, more quietly. "I don't mean we shouldn't help each other. It's just that that's all we've got, you know?" She watched Reno for a few moments, and then crossed to him, shaking her head. "Stop going through my things," she sighed, gathering some of her clothes out of Reno's hands, and pulling her bag away from him. "I can do it myself."

"All right, hey," Reno said, stepping back and holding his hands out in front of him in a gesture of acquiescence, "I'm only trying to help." He tossed a pair of underwear at Elena that had fallen out of her arms, and she picked it up sheepishly, dropping it into her bag, and turning away from him as she zipped it shut. Reno frowned. "Testy today."

"Sorry," muttered Elena, not contritely. "Maybe I'm just having a little bit of a rough time. I never expected I'd have to do this ever again. Takes some getting used to." She sat down on the bed, and played with the ends of her pillowcase as she talked. "Not too hard to believe, right?"

"Nah," Reno said, softly, for the first time. "Not too hard to believe." Elena looked up at him, surprised, and Reno smiled a little bit, in that brash, unabashed, almost disturbing way that he tended to. Elena chuckled, and Reno dropped his bag, walking over to sit beside her on the bed. "But then again, we're all only human, right? Said it yourself."

Reno put a hand on Elena's shoulder, and she rested her head on his hand, sighing with a rueful smile on her lips. "Yeah, aren't we, though. And I bet my complaining isn't helping my case with you, is it?" She laughed again.

Reno rolled his eyes. "Oh please, Elena. If you had to have a case with me in the first place, you think I would have risked my ass to get you out here?" He shook his head, and said, without a trace of rancor, "You're a crazy, ungrateful little snipe."

"You came because Tseng came and picked you up off of the floor of a bar, or something along those lines," Elena countered. "I mean, not saying I'm 'ungrateful,' per say, but let's face the facts, all right, if it weren't for Tseng, none of us would ever have left where we were hiding out in time for anything, let alone voluntarily have looked out for each other.

Reno shook his head. "Nah," he said. "Never. I'd have come for you before long." Elena stared at him, and Reno shrugged. "I think you knew it was true all along. If Rude hadn't gotten to you first, that is. It'd never have worked out for us to be alone." He stretched out his legs across the bed, and put his arms up behind his head, not looking directly at Elena. "Never fear."

"Who, me?" Elena chuckled, self-deprecating. "I'm never afraid." She leaned forward a little on the bed, grinning at Reno. "Not me."

Reno laughed. "Yeah," he said, "I know it."

Suddenly, Elena, almost entirely on the other side of the bed, was too close to him, and he started to feel almost claustrophobic, in a disturbing way that he almost enjoyed. He watched her large eyes as she met his gaze, inquisitive, her previous capricious mood mostly dissipated. He felt warm, and sat back against the post of the bed on his side, folding his legs in against each other. "Yeah," he repeated, "that's our little soldier."

It was something he'd called her when she'd first joined the Turks. Elena had always been at least a head and shoulders shorter than the rest of the force, and Reno had made endless fun of her about it, until she'd proven herself to be a better fighter than even some of his mentors. The name had turned into an affectionate nickname, one that Rude had chuckled at, and Tseng had scowled at, carrying through until they'd lost touch with each other all those years ago.

"I'm not little," she said, bristling slightly, eyebrows raised.

Reno grinned. "Okay, sorry," he murmured. "Our vertically-challenged soldier." Elena laughed, and stretched out her legs, her foot coming into contact with Reno's shin, despite his distance on the bed. She retracted it gently, but didn't apologize, and Reno looked up to admonish her, and then didn't. He watched her for a moment, and then shook his head and laughed quietly to himself.

"What?" Elena asked, eyebrows ascending into her hairline. Reno shook his head.

"Who knows," he said. "Never woulda thought it was gonna be me." Elena opened her mouth to ask him what he meant, but he didn't give her the opportunity. Reno leaned in and, closing the distance between them on the bed, kissed her without a moment's hesitation, taking in Elena's little gasp of surprise with a chuckle. He laid one hand along her cheek, pulling her face in closer to him, as Elena finally began, slowly, to respond to the kiss.

Reno fell back onto the bed, pulling Elena closer to him, up over him, until she was leaning against him, her lips caressing his, arms entwined around his waist as her short blond hair got into his mouth. He tried blowing it out of the way, or pushing it out of his face, but after a moment was forced to succumb to the kiss, hair and all, smiling to himself all the while. She pressed herself against him, once hesitant, now eager, and Reno held her as close as he could, one hand caressing her neck as the other began to undo the button on her jeans.

Elena began to kiss at his neck softly, her warm breath blowing in his ear as her lips ran over his throat, down his chest. Reno closed his eyes as she went to reach for the bottom of his shirt and to pull it up over his head. As she did so, however, she paused for a moment, and poked him in the side, eliciting a little squeak and a jump from Reno, who glared at her around the hair that kept obscuring his view.

"You're never easy, are you," he whispered. Elena laughed. Reno was glad he didn't, at that point, have to get up to close the door. "C'mere," he muttered, and, pulling her to him, he kissed her, pulling the covers of the bed halfway up over them in an attempt to obscure them from any eyes that might, at that moment, decide to come through the adjoining room.

On the other side of the door, Tseng hadn't moved from where he'd collapsed on to the bed, leaving Rude alone to sit and watch the door to Elena's room. He bit his lip, pushed his sunglasses up a little bit farther on his face, tried to ignore the feeling in his stomach that tore him between sadly sinking, and hope that maybe they'd all found something that would tie them inextricably together.