My Own Chapter 9

by Kate/Kaeda

Pairing: Elena/Tseng, Elena/Reno

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer in chapter 1.

OH MY GOODNESS DID I UPDATE? Yes, I did!

It's been like two years since I've worked on this fic, and I'm pretty sure my writing style has changed a LOT because the flow was completely different for me. I hope it works for you guys. I'm really getting back into Squaresoft games and FFVII (I just watched Advent Children earlier today. Turks!) so perhaps there will be even more of this fic. And I think I might tie it in with Advent Children if I actually get that far!

Yeah, like that's going to happen.

Anyways, here's the next part! Gongaga, drama, and Elena shows us some vulnerability.

----Chapter 9----

Helicopter rides with the Turks are always an adventure, and the one to Gongaga was no different. Reno smiled his usual disarming grin and wedged himself between Rude and I, cleverly managing to grope me before settling himself. I rolled my eyes and smacked him, and Rude grunted slightly in an annoyed way that made me wonder if he'd groped the other man as well. With the majority of my personal space thus invaded, Tseng took us up from the helipad and off to our next assignment. Since Gongaga was on the other continent, we spent a good five hours crammed like that, and I began to wonder why Shinra couldn't be bothered to give its elite assassin team a better method for flying around the world. Helicopters sucked.

When Reno began whining about a bathroom break three hours in, I knew I was going to lose it and shoot someone. Probably a certain redheaded idiot. Tseng seemed to sense this from our body language, because he muttered something about being late and set us down on some unmarked plain. Reno scrambled over me and was out the door the moment we were down, and Rude stood as well.

"You have to pee, too?" I asked snidely, in a foul mood.

"…I want to stretch," Rude replied, before making his own dignified exit. He stood in the grass outside the door looking like some sort of statue, glancing over the large meadow we were parked in. Tseng threw me a look.

"If you want to stretch too, feel free," he said in that usual calm way of his. I flushed at his kindness; I had been half expecting him to demand that Rude get back in so we could take off the moment Reno was done. I slipped out myself and stood next to Rude, noticing for the first time how stiff my knees were.

"Where's Reno?" I asked, not particularly wanting to accidentally glance over to where he was taking care of business. Despite the fact that we were sleeping together, I was, and still am, a firm believer in there being some things people just don't share. Rude gestured vaguely and unhelpfully towards the trees and I decided I wouldn't look closer into the forest. Then I glanced back to the helicopter. I could vaguely make out Tseng's elegant profile through the front window. He seemed to be watching the sky, and I wondered why he hadn't come out like the rest of us.

"You really love him, don't you." Rude never said much, so when he made such a startling observation I nearly fainted. He looked at me through those creepy sunglasses of his and I felt my cheeks flushing again. As far as I knew, Rude didn't know Reno and I were an item (although the pair were close, I wasn't sure if it went beyond work stuff or not).

"I don't love Tseng!" I finally said, but it was awkward and too late and Rude had the ghost of a smirk on his face, the closest he ever got to a facial expression. "He's a good leader and a brilliant man and he's beautiful but that doesn't mean I'm in love with him. I admire him." If Rude could look disbelieving, I was sure he would be giving me the biggest look of disdain that ever touched a man's face. But he just glanced at me over his glasses again, and I shivered. Turks don't miss much. The only reason Reno probably thought I was over Tseng was because he was emotionally invested in the whole situation.

Don't get me wrong, I was fond of Reno. I was even genuinely beginning to like him. But Tseng was something larger than life, something amazing and wonderful and someone I wanted to be and no real human being could ever compete with him. I'm surprised Reno ever even tried.

When I think back, I still can't tell if Reno was in love with me. It didn't seem in his nature to love anybody or anything; he was a free spirit, completely untamable, and I was his interest at the moment. But when I remember the trouble he took to analyze me, to figure out what made me tick, and when I remember how he reacted when…

But that's later.

Reno came bounding back up to the helicopter out of nowhere, still hastily zipping his fly (to my disgust). He slung his arm around my shoulder (also to my disgust) and messily kissed my ear.

"How's it going, rookie?" he asked. "Don't worry, I washed my hands." He noticed my cringe and laughed outrageously before darting back into the helicopter. "When do we leave?" Rude boarded behind him, judiciously taking the middle seat so that I wouldn't have to sit next to Reno. Always the gentleman. Tseng gave us all a glance before taking off again, and then we were flying across the countryside for another two hours.

At least Reno wasn't trying to grope me for the rest of the trip, since reaching over Rude would probably have gotten him killed.

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We settled into the small inn at Gongaga, which didn't have separate rooms at all but a small back room with four beds. Five minutes after we checked in, Reno was already lounging lazily, uniform completely askew, and Rude was standing in bodyguard position by the door. Tseng was gone, doing some recon before we went to sleep. Tomorrow we would begin inspecting the reactor.

Tseng looked grumpy when he finally returned.

"I ran into Scarlett," was all he needed to say. The rest of us nodded in pity and he settled himself on the bed diagonal from mine. "She's looking for something called Huge Materia. She wants me to assist her when she pokes around the reactor tomorrow, and she says that Avalanche is in the area, so I want you three to watch the paths that lead to this town and the reactor. If you can't entrap them, the President is going to be very displeased." Tseng just sounded tired, but I supposed that flying a helicopter for five hours could do that to a man. Even an invincible man like Tseng. "Can you handle Avalanche?" he asked wearily.

"Of course we can!" I insisted, and he just gave me a look.

It was a bit disheartening, back in those days, when I knew Tseng didn't really understand who he was working with. He only saw the ditzy blonde who somehow had been recommended for Turk duty, despite the fact that I'd nearly kicked the shit out of him when we'd sparred a few months back. He didn't understand that I was as much a Turk as Reno and Rude were, that I was steel.

Sephiroth had noticed, but that wasn't helping me sleep any easier at night.

But then again, I looked at who Tseng had to work with. The ditzy blonde, the drunk redhead, and the silent giant. Sometimes we were more like a circus than an elite group of fighters. But at crunch time, we'd get the job done.

Well, until Avalanche came along.

The twilight outside began to dim into night and Reno kept sending me suggestive looks, but there was no way I was going to sneak out with him under our colleagues's (and the man I loved's) nose. After awhile he realized I wasn't game and so instead he began lazily stripping, as if taking his shirt off would make me suddenly realize that I couldn't live without him. It didn't, of course, and he sullenly got into bed and a few moments later I heard a funny little snore. Tseng was similarly already asleep, despite it being so early in the evening, but I chalked it up to the long flight and decided I needed fresh air before I watched Tseng sleep for the next three hours, which would have been pretty creepy.

"I'm going for a walk," I told Rude, who was still hulking by the door. He nodded and I quickly slipped out of the inn and walked under the stars.

Every time I leave Midgar, I always stop and admire the Mako-free sky. The stars were beginning to wink out and the hot stickiness of the Gongaga rainforest was receding into the cool of night. Crickets were something we didn't have in Midgar, I mused as I walked, and palm trees, and the strange night birds, chirping as if they had to sing their hearts out before the moon rose. The place was too peaceful, and I was out of place. I was a killer – I didn't belong in this peaceful existence.

A footfall sounded behind me, and I knew it was him before I even turned around.

"Have you been following me?"

He gave a low, throaty chuckle. "Don't flatter yourself." I whirled around and glared at him, giant in the darkness. "You fascinate me, but it is something…more…that brings me here." The moon rose in the sky behind him and I felt vaguely like I was in a cheesy movie, for the moonlight silhouetted his intimidating figure and shined off his hair.

"Look," I said, because there was no way in hell I was going to act scared of a man who kept his stupid alcohol in my refrigerator, even if it was Sephiroth, "you've left me alone for the past month, and it's kind of nice. I'm not anything special. I'm just Elena." We both knew I was lying, and it sang in my blood. I was indeed special; I was a Turk, and I was the only female Turk at present, and we all had a destiny.

"These are pivotal times," he spoke as if reading my mind. "You four are all that's left of a legacy that spanned generations at Shinra. You stand between me and my goal. You stand between me and those rebels that are after my Mother. And you," he took a step closer, and I met his stare, cat-slit green to blue. "You are going to be someone, someday." And then I noticed the materia shining in his wrist guard.

The world fell away, just as I'm sure he'd intended it to.

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I woke up grumpily the next morning with a headache the size of Midgar, lying on my uncomfortable inn bed. Rude was still standing by the door, but both Tseng and Reno were gone, and as I sat up, the events of the night before came back to me.

"Rude!" I exclaimed, not really sure what to ask.

"You didn't come back for several hours," he told me. "Finally, I woke Tseng and we went looking for you. We found you unconscious on the path outside town, and we brought you in." He paused for a moment, this sort of speech beyond his usual vocalization. "Did Avalanche attack you?"

I huffed. Surely I could take on Avalanche.

"No! I don't know what happened." A lie. Sephiroth was there, and he had hit me with some sort of spell (probably Sleep, it occurred to me), after telling me I was going to be someone (which kind of offended me, because from my standards I already was someone, albeit not a very important someone in the grand scheme of things). "I was walking, and then I woke up here."

He didn't believe me, but he let it go. "Tseng is already at the reactor. Reno is out figuring out the best place where we can waylay Avalanche. We're going to meet him." With that, Rude turned and walked out, leaving me to change into my spare suit and comb my hair. As I exited the inn, I noticed that Rude was already gone. While I walked along the path I'd started along the night before, my mind went back to Sephiroth.

Sephiroth. Every time I ran into that man, something stranger happened. First the giant sword and the fact that he didn't kill me, then the alley, then his fun visits to my apartment, and now suddenly he puts me to sleep for no reason? He obviously wasn't interested in me romantically. It was more as though he was looking for a protégé, someone to…talk to? Was Sephiroth, Shinra's nightmare, lonely?

No, that was ridiculous.

I have never been able to see the good qualities in myself. I was confident enough to rise through the ranks of Soldier, but it takes a different sort of confidence to look in the mirror and see a worthy person staring back. The fake confidence was easy, and the ditz façade even easier. I was a woman who lived in masks, and I knew as long as I didn't take them off, no one would ever be able to hurt the real person inside. In some ways, Reno and I were similar in that regard, and that's probably most of the reason why our pseudo-relationship worked as long as it did.

But Sephiroth had stepped out of the shadows and seen through the masks, and still he wanted…something…from me. The thought was daunting, terrifying. Exhilerating.

I rounded the curve in the path towards where it forked to the reactor, and I could hear Reno and Rude talking gruffly about something unintelligible. I was about to pass the stone that hid me and join the party when I heard Reno ask teasingly,

"Hey, Rude! Who do you like?" The man was so much trouble. When Rude didn't answer for a minute, Reno continued, "What are you getting embarrassed about? Come on! Who do you like?" He was so irritatingly persistent. I didn't actually expect Rude to respond to this annoying line of questioning (nor did I think Rude actually liked anybody), so when, after a long pause, he responded, I almost fell over in surprise.

"…Tifa," he admitted gruffly.

Tifa? Who was Tifa! The name sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place it. Apparently, neither could Reno, who put on his usual teasing tone and decided to mess with Rude a little.

"Hmmm. That's a tough one. But poor Elena! She…you…"

I sputtered. What on earth was the man implying! That I liked Rude? Reno was going to be sleeping on the couch for the next year.

What I didn't expect was that Rude would take him so seriously…and that he would completely blow any chance I had at an actual relationship.

Of course, I didn't realize it at the time.

"No, she likes Tseng," he said flatly. For a moment I just stood there, stunned that Rude of all people would let a (sort of) secret like that out of the bag, then I realized that Reno would never believe him. He did, after all, have a 'thing' going with me, and he also thought that I had gotten over Tseng months before.

"I never knew that…" Reno said hollowly.

Oh, shit.

Then he continued. "But Tseng likes that Ancient…" and I felt my stomach drop a little. Reno was pissed, Rude was oblivious, and Tseng…liked someone? Then I heard another voice behind the palm fronds.

"What are they talking about?" It was the spiky-haired blond from Avalanche, with a very well-endowed chick and a kid dressed like a ninja behind him. I put on my brave shoes, knowing that they would most likely sneak up on Reno and Rude when they were so distracted, and said to myself, under my breath,

"It's so stupid! They always talk about who they like or don't like. But Tseng is different!" Tseng would never gossip like that. Tseng would never inadvertently break my heart.

Then I ran out from my hiding spot. "They're here, they're really here!" I knew I sounded sort of ditzy again, but I was riding an emotional roller coaster at that point and I didn't really care. Reno gave me a long look, then turned to Rude.

"Hmm, then it's time." He put on a ghost of his usual asshole smile. "Rude, don't go easy on them even though they're girls." I glared at the sexist remark and he gave me another look.

"Don't worry, I'll do my job," Rude said, and I could have sworn there was a hint of sarcasm in his reply, but I didn't care because suddenly, I had to get away from Reno before my heart burst. I spoke quickly.

"Then we're counting on you! I'll report to Tseng."

And then I was off, running down the path towards the reactor like a scared little girl, but I wasn't scared of Avalanche, or fighting, but of my feelings and how…heart wrenching it had been to see that look on Reno's face, and how horrible I felt at the thought that Tseng could like someone else.

Did I really like Reno?

It scared me.

But I still liked Tseng.

I reached the reactor panting, and Tseng and Scarlett looked up in surprise from the entrance.

"Avalanche is here!" I gasped out, then took a moment to catch my breath. "Reno and Rude are taking care of them, sir!" Tseng looked closely at me and I felt my heart tighten. His face was disapproving.

"Why aren't you helping them?"

Because I found out that Reno's in love with me, and I'm in love with you, sir.

"I felt as though I should inform you. Reno and Rude are perfectly capable of handling the situation on their own, and Rude was concerned about my fighting condition after my collapse last night…" I trailed off and looked to see if he was buying it. He looked impartial. "I didn't want to affect them in case I was still weak." He finally seemed to buy it.

"All right. Get back and see if they need help. After you've captured Avalanche, I've secured one of the houses to use as a cell until we can get them airlifted to Midgar. The woman at the inn knows which one it is."

"Yes, sir!" I was acting just like a rookie. It was very embarrassing, but lifting the mask would mean facing my feelings. Scarlett was watching me disdainfully from the side, and I kind of wanted to smack her slutty blonde face.

"Good. I'll be by later to check on the prisoners. Good work, Elena," Tseng said, then he and Scarlett turned to enter the reactor. I nodded quickly and took off the way I had come. I could hear the sounds of fighting in the distance and knew Reno and Rude were still at it with Avalanche, but when I thought about going back to join them, my heart froze in terror when I remembered Reno's face.

I walked a little ways off the path, into the rainforest, and found a smooth slab of rock. I curled up on it, and for the first time in three years, I let myself cry.

…to be continued…

Please R&R, they feed my inspiration. Yeah, that's a lie, because I got some great reviews for chapter 8 and it still took me two-something years to update, but I swear it's because college ate me and it's not because I don't love you all.

Next time: the aftermath! Reno confronts Elena – to tell the truth, or not tell the truth! That is the question. Also, Avalanche gets away! (WHAT? NO WAY) and Tseng is pissed off like none other. Stay tuned!