Just another day at the office?

I do not own Runo's or Elidae's parents, or their coworkers!! I only own Runo.

Elidae is property of my cowriter in this, my friend Rude/Xemmy/Marly/whatever else she wants to be called.

I hope anyone who has gotten into Runo and Elidae (Runidae is the shipname) likes this

There were days when Runo just wondered why they were called into the office at all, and this was one of those days. There were no missions to go on, barely even any paperwork. She couldn't go home, no matter that they lived in the building, because her father would call her up the second she hit the floor they lived on and ask her why she was there. Groaning, she got up and headed out of her office to the lounge that she and her partner shared with the paperwork she was trying to finish, hoping he'd be out there.

Luckily, Elidae was sitting at one of the two desks they'd put in there if they wanted to talk while working. It was usually a distraction, but it was so dull that it was probably not going to be a problem today. She usually didn't wear a tie, but smirked as she watched him irritably pull the offending article off while taking a break from the report. She stretched and sat at the other desk, then took off her jacket, tossing it into some dark corner where it would vanish for Ifrit knew how long.

Hearing the rustle of fabric from over his left shoulder, Elidae looked up from the disgustingly boring report. He grinned when he saw Runo rolling up her sleeves and pulling the uniform shirt out from the waistband of her slacks.

"What?" she grinned back when she picked up the pen she was using to fill out the report again.

He just grinned and pulled off his jacket as well, following his girlfriend's example. He didn't toss it to the black abyss that hers had gone to, but put it on the back of his chair instead before rolling up his sleeves as well.

"Not much to do, is there?"

"No. I'm starting to think we should just bug daddy early today." She sighed.

"And get kicked out by the secretary?"

Runo rolled her eyes remembering the time they'd tried to bother Rufus earlier than usual on a slow day like this one. Sometimes she could swear that he was some sort of work addict. Usually around one in the afternoon, everyone in the Turks migrated upstairs to bother their boss all at once on slow days. It had become ritual. Unfortunately for her, it was still just past noon. Their lunch break had been at eleven, and none of the reports they were working on were even vital to anything.

"Hey Runo, you ever notice how your dad's rings match the other's eyes?" Elidae asked, interrupting her doodling on her reports.

She looked up and raised an eyebrow at him. Smirking for a moment, she gathered her reports and moved over to sit in his lap, hiding some of the doodles of jewelry she'd made.

"So? Doesn't really matter to me . . ."

Runo returned to her doodles, a sour look on her face. She'd envied the symbolism of her dads' rings for a while.

"Stop pouting, I can tell your lying." Elli snickered as he leaned back in his chair, letting Runo do what she wanted while sitting on his lap.

Runo threw her boyfriend a dirty look over her shoulder and stopped drawing to lean back against the dark skinned teen's broad chest and looked up to glare half- heartedly at him.

"How?"

"I'm special" Runo rolled her eyes at Elidae's dopey smile

"That you are, Elli, that you are"

"Hey!"

"Anyway . . . I just . . . I guess . . . I . . ."

"You're jealous?" Runo's expression turned blank.

"You sure you're not psychic...?" Elidae shrugged and looked down at Runo, nuzzling her hair and wrapping one arm around her

"So...? Why're you jealous of your dad's rings?" Runo fidgeted for a moment before sighing

"I guess I just wish I had something symbolic like that..." Elidae cocked his head in confusion till Runo started talking again

"It's just...we don't have anything like that...for our kinda bond . . ." she looked down to the side, her cheeks turning a light pink from embarrassment.

"Besides, I don't have any nice jewelry yet, and I don't wanna ask Daddy for some! I want it to mean something!!" Runo crossed her arms over his, puffing out her cheeks indignantly as Elidae chuckled softly as he pulled something from his pocket, the lid of the small box open before sliding it into Runo's sight

"You mean something like this?"

The smaller Turk gasped at the ring, a simple silver band smithed into a heart in the front with the heart-shaped gem in the middle split into two different gems; Alexandrite and Garnet.

"Our birthstones . . . Elli . . . is this?!" Runo broke free of Elidae's grip and turned so she was facing him.

Elidae was smiling softly, and wrapped his free hand around her waist again as the other placed the box in Runo's grasp

"Marry me?"

Next thing he knows, he's out of the chair, on the floor, with a crying Runo in his arms

"r-Run-"

"YesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesYES!" she chanted, grinning through the tears and Elidae couldn't keep his own happiness inside, grinning right along with her and crushing his lips against her while slipping the ring onto her finger.

"You guys comin'?" asked her dad through the door after knocking.

Ever since they'd started dating, Reno learned that it was best to knock if he didn't want to walk in on a make-out session between the two.

"Just a moment, dad!" Runo called back, laughing.

Shrugging, he headed up to the eighth floor of the building with Elena and Rude. Sometimes they missed having Tseng around, but since he'd found someone, he wouldn't say who, he just vanished from their radar. Normally that wouldn't be possible, but he wasn't a Turk for nothing.

Looking up at the clock on his wall, Rufus groaned. Nearly one in the afternoon, and he knew that it was another slow day. His Turks would be storming his office soon to bother him. They had made it a habit, and he was forced to accommodate them, because shoving all five of them out the door was impossible for him. It was almost becoming an enjoyable break from the tedium of running the now-small company.

"Daddy!" cried his daughter in joy as she burst through the doors five minutes early.

Rufus' head shot up from putting his paperwork away. Something new must have happened today, to make her burst in early. She was waving her left hand in front of his face, until he grabbed ahold of it and pulled it down to look at what she had been trying to show him, ignoring the fact that her boyfriend was trying to catch his breath on the end of her other hand.

"I'm engaged, daddy, isn't it great?" she gushed as he examined the stones with a jewelers' loupe.

The rest of the Turks walked in to find Rufus picking up the girl and swinging her around, exclaiming "My baby's getting married!" upon hearing this, Reno fainted.

As soon as she was set back on the carpet, she rushed over to her blond coworker and raised her left hand up for her inspection.

"Isn't it gorgeous, Auntie 'Lena?" she exclaimed, just before getting the same treatment from her as from her father.

Giggling, she ran back towards her fiancée, only to trip over the prone body of the redhead. Stumbling, she turned to glare at the fainted man.

"Oh for Shiva's sake, dad, get up!" she said, kicking him in the leg.

Groaning and gingerly touching the back of his head where he hit the floor, Reno slowly sat up. For reasons he still didn't understand, Runo didn't get along with him too well once she hit thirteen. He tried all sorts of things to appeal to her, even giving her drinks from his beer and so on, but no matter what, she kept pushing away from him. It got worse once she became a Turk. Then she started dating Elidae, her own partner. That baffled him to no end; they worked together, lived in the same building, why would she want to spend even more time with him?

"Don't I get some kind of say in this?" he grumbled, still holding the back of his head.

Runo raised one eyebrow at him, wondering what sort of nonsense was going to spew from her dad's mouth this time. She loved him, really, she did, but he often stuck his foot in his mouth . . . usually followed by the other, his hand, the EMR, and some other various things. He just ran off at the mouth without thinking, and it was usually embarrassing. She just hoped the heaping helping of foot was not in store for this new spiel.

"What, dad?" she sighed, giving him a look that said 'I beg of you, don't ruin this for me'.

The look shot straight through him . . . he could see in her eyes that this was something she wanted for a long time, and that she was tired of him ruining things for her. She was tired and sore, just wanted to settle somewhere so that she didn't have to deal with the disappointment anymore. It hurt, that accusation of disappointment in her eyes, but he supposed it could be that he was holding on a bit too tightly. Maybe it was time to let someone else protect her, for once. He looked over at the boy who'd grown a lot since the day he'd beat him up for hurting his daughter. He almost looked like his father now, Reno's own partner, but with hair.

"You better take care of her, alright kid? Don't wanna try huntin' ya down now. You're just too damn big." He smiled at his friend's son.

"Thanks dad." Runo whispered as she threw her arms around him.

The redhead let out a soft 'oof' as her petite form collided with his unexpectedly. Hugs were few and far between with them, so every time he got one, it was a surprise. He hugged her back, not noticing that she was crying happy tears at him finally backing off. Smiling, Rude pulled his wife in for a hug, from the side. It might not be a full truce, since Runo was too much like Reno for them to always get along, but at least it was a start.