Elena arrived at the Turk's hidden base late. She had been making the journey by chocobo to try to keep a low profile however when she had passed through the caves several monsters had ambushed her. A couple of grenades had quickly sorted out the monsters but the terrified chocobo, bleeding from a scratch from a monster, had tossed the Turk and ran away leaving Elena without any form of transport. As she was only ten miles from her destination and so she'd made the choice to jog the distance rather than phone one of the other Turks for help. She was still trying to dispel the image of the useless rookies that she'd managed to acquire by messing up her first mission so badly. Of course she'd regretted her decision as the temperatures soared and she quickly became soaked with sweat. She arrived at the base mid afternoon with dishevelled hair sweaty clothes and an absolute wish for a nice long shower.
She arrived at the hidden door and cautiously sniffed her armpit. Eeww disgusting, she thought. Must ask Rosalind what deodorant she uses, as this stuff is definitely not designed for the amount of activity Turks are required to do. She passed the voice test, iris scans and fingerprint and the door slid open, squeaking in protest, to reveal the entrance hallway. She walked along to the control room, the door automatically sliding shut behind her. The cool of the air conditioning was a great relief to her hot body. In the control room Rude and Reno were both peering at different screens. They had both acquired some bruises since the last time she'd seen them and the sunglasses Rude was currently wearing were not the ones he'd had on when he set out for Gongaga though beyond that they both looked unharmed. They barely looked up when she walked in.
"No one else here?" She asked trying to peer over their shoulders. The screens at the extreme top left showed the surrounding area which explained why they hadn't been surprised by her arrival.
"Tseng's still being dragged around mako reactors by scarlet. The others are late, like you. What happened?" Reno said without looking up from the consol.
Elena tried to asses whether or not Reno was smirking but failed. It was too hard to tell from behind. Sighing she explained, "The chocobo wasn't exactly used to being attacked. It dumped me up by the hills."
"And you ran the rest of the way?" Now Reno was definitely smirking "Ickle Lanykins wants to show how independent she is"
Elena ignored him and turned to Rude. "When is everyone going to get here?"
"They are on their way now," He answered gesturing to the lowest screen. "Half an hour max"
Elena ran a hand through her hair and was reminded how sweaty it was. She sighed. "I really really need a shower. I'll go do that now before they get here."
"The shower's broken." Reno said straight-faced.
Elena stopped incredulous. How the hell could the shower be broken? She would not look a mess when the others arrived and how the hell did they expect to cope with all the Turks here with only one broken shower. "You'd better be kidding"
"Nope"
Elena looked beseechingly at Rude who simply nodded. She shook her head in disbelief. "I have just run the last ten miles here and it is boiling out there while you've been sitting in here with the air conditioning on and you're both telling me the showers broken."
Reno finally turned around from the display. "Well it's usable, yo." He shrugged "Kind of. The hot doesn't work but you can have a cold shower if you want."
"Cold shower is fine," Elena said sighing in relief. "A nice refreshing cool shower is just what I want. Is it down the corridor."
"Yep, second door on the left."
"Towels are where?"
"Cupboard in the room with a shower. There are spare uniforms as well. I'm not sure if we've got any in your size but I'm guessing you'll find something that'll fit."
"Thanks Reno," she sad surprised at how helpful he was being. Shower wonderful shower, shampoo and soap sang a small portion of her mind but for once she managed to not blurt out the first thing that came into her head. Leaving her gun and grenades on the side in the main room she went in search of the shower room.
Rude raised his eyebrows at Reno as Elena walked out the room humming under her breath completely oblivious to the fact that the others could hear her. "You didn't tell her"
"Oh come on, yo. She should have asked," said Reno who had once again turned his full attention to the display.
Rude pointed to a small screen in the corner. "The others are coming and when they get here she'll find out."
Reno shrugged. "She still should have asked, yo. How long do you think she'll stay in there?"
It was when Elena turned the shower on she learnt the difference between refreshingly cool and cold. She bit back a yelp as the sheet of ice-cold water landed on her head. It was absolutely freezing, even colder than the time she'd got hit by an ice 2. She just about managed to stop herself cursing Reno with all her might. She quickly took a step backwards to get out of the direct blast of the water. Being soaked with freezing cold water was not exactly preferable to being soaked with sweat.
Leaning against the wall she thought angry thoughts. Reno had set her up to get soaked in freezing water. If she went and complained though he'd know he'd got to her. Heck, she didn't want to complain she want to go shoot him or drop a grenade beneath his seat. Unfortunately she remembered that she'd left her weapons in the room where Reno and Rude were so that course of action was out. Possible revenge plans flashed through her mind most of which had to be discarded as there was no way Reno was going to fall for them no matter how persuasive she was. Finally she gave up on the last one though stored it for later reference as a revenge plan. Now she was stuck. She was sitting there getting progressively colder as little drops of water bounced from the base of the shower onto her with no possible way of getting her own back on Reno.
Of course there was still an avenue left for her. She was a Turk wasn't she. If she couldn't cope with cold showers, albeit absolutely freezing ice cold showers, she was weak and there was no way she was going to appear weak in front of the others. A cold shower wouldn't kill her, probably, and she did need a wash. Reno wouldn't be able to laugh at her if she actually had the shower.
So it was decided. She would have the shower, wash her hair and pretend that cold showers were just what she always wanted. She could do this. Clenching her jaw to prevent herself screaming she forced herself back under the icy torrent.
Rosalind and Kelly walked into the control room together twenty minutes later followed by Jackal and Rodney. Rodney started digging around the cupboard and pulled out several packets of high-energy food bars and chucked them to the others. Rosalind and Kelly caught there's easily but Jackal who wasn't looking got hit on the forehead. With their food they descended on the display which Reno and Rude were watching.
Kelly took in the battered appearance of Reno and Rude before asking. "What happened to you two?"
"We met Avalanche in Gongaga," stated Rude
"Ha, the almighty Reno has yet again failed to defeat Avalanche," teased Rodney. "Those guys must be good if you lost even with two of you."
"We didn't lose it was a tactical retreat, yo." said Reno defensively.
"Hmm… If it makes you feel any better," said Kelly coolly.
"It doesn't actually" snapped Reno. "What instruction were you given"
Kelly shrugged "Tseng said to come here and wait until he manages to ditch Scarlet"
"Yeah, he told us that too." Said Reno traces of anger still remaining in his voice. "I was kind of wondering if he told you anything after that."
"Not really."
"Where is Elena?" Rosalind asked suddenly. She was looking at the gun and grenades that Elena had left on the side. "Please tell me she hasn't managed to get herself killed already"
Reno laughed. "No she's alive, yo, for the moment at least. She's in the shower."
"The ice cold one?" she asked, at the look on his face she sighed. "Reno did you warn her."
"I told her it was cold," Reno said casually.
"But not how cold," Rodney guessed.
Reno's silence answered the question.
"Did she actually get in the shower?"
"Yep," Reno tried to restrain a smirk as Rosalind was watching him but couldn't quite.
"She didn't jump out screaming?" Kelly asked incredulously, remembering the time that she'd been tricked by Rodney and Reno into using the shower.
"No, nothing, yo. Actually she's been in there a rather long time,"
"Maybe she got hypothermia and froze to death," said Jackal but shut up when Rosalind glared at him.
"She'll be fine, Rosalind. Don't worry," Rude shifted his sunglasses up his nose. "We should however try to get that shower fixed."
"Why bother," asked Reno. We're all fine with using the replacement thing you hooked up and a broken shower is great for tricking rookies."
"Tricking rookies is not a reason for doing anything," Kelly said hitting him lightly on the arm. "I'm still cross with you for the time you did that to me."
Rosalind was just about to go investigate her sisters health when Elena emerged from the hallway into the control room, her wet blond hair wrapped in a towel and wearing what looked like one of Rosalind's own uniforms.
"You had a shower," she asked.
Elena nodded her brown eyes wide and innocent looking. They met Rosalind's green sceptical ones without looking away. "I needed one."
"Was it a nice shower," asked Jackal from behind Rosalind.
"Yeah."
"You didn't notice anything about it," asked Rodney disbelieving.
She shrugged, "It was just like Reno said. A bit on the cold side."
"A bit on the cold side? That thing's basically sub zero," exclaimed Kelly. "Hey Elena do you want to help me make Reno take a shower in that thing like we've had to."
You didn't take a shower, you jumped out the moment it turned on," the red head laughed. "If only we had a sound recording of that scream."
Kelly hit him and this time Reno hit back. She retaliated and Reno yelped when she hit one of his bruises. He tried to trip her over with a leg but she grabbed it and used it to pull him off his chair and then jumped on top of him
"Why is the shower that temperature?" Elena asked Rude curiously taking the opportunity in the confusion to steal Reno's chair.
"Reno explain"
"Why me" Reno asked from beneath Kelly.
"Because you are the one responsible for it being that cold in the first place." Rude stated.
"Fine, whatever. Let me up Kelly." She sat on him for a moment longer before allowing him to regain his feet. "Well it's like this rookie. Hojo gave us some experimental material. They were supposed to be even better than mastered materia, yo. There was the one which we actually tested that did fire 4, and one which did bolt 4, but of course there was a little problem with them so nobody lets me use them anymore."
'It wasn't a little problem," injected Rosalind. "Something with a blast area of a 50m radius and a range of 30m is not a usable weapon."
"We could have worked round it," said Reno waving his hand dismissively to indicate his opinion of the smallness of the problem. "Anyway there was also an ice one. I was checking the water level in the tank when Tseng came to collect it to make sure no one would accidentally use them by accident and kill themselves."
"You can guess what happened," said Rodney smirking.
"He chucked the materia at Tseng missed and it landed in the tank." Kelly finished.
"The result," Reno continued. "All the water that feeds into the shower is ice cold."
"Well why don't you just fish the materia out," asked Elena feeling as though the solution to the shower problem was obvious.
"The tank is huge and the water in it is even colder than that which comes out in the shower," shrugged Jackal. "We measured the temperature and it's actually below freezing but some quirk of the materia means its still a liquid. The tank is also a very convoluted shape to fit around some of the defence systems so you can't even tell where exactly it is."
"Get one of the robot weapons things Scarlet makes to go down there," she suggested.
"Those things are utterly overrated." Reno stated derisively. "They stop working at a temperature of 2 degrees. There's one of them in the bottom of the tank as well. But seeing as we're thinking about ways of getting it out." He turned and grinned at Jackal who looked at him confused.
"I don't get you."
"Someone doesn't seem to mind cold water that much."
Reno had his persuasive voice on and so was clearly planning something. Elena could tell and she had the feeling she wasn't going to like whatever it was.
"Of course Reno. That would actually solve the problem." Jackal said. Rodney and Kelly were both nodding now. Rude's face was impassive however Rosalind was scowling.
"No Reno you are not suggesting that," she said firmly.
"Suggesting what," asked Elena still unsure what exactly was going on.
"Only that you do something," said Reno slyly.
"Elena, you can't do it." Rosalind said shutting Reno up with a look.
Elena was getting annoyed with not knowing exactly what was going on but couldn't stop herself blurting out. "Why ever not."
"I'm not letting you" Rosalind replied angrily.
"Sister row," murmured Jackal under his breath. It was one of the few givens among the Turks. Place Elena and Rosalind together in a room and you generally had an argument within half an hour.
"As if you can let me do anything," exclaimed Elena indignantly. "I'm perfectly capable of doing anything the rest of you can do.'
'The rest of us wouldn't do this." Rosalind's frustration with her sister's stubbornness was becoming obvious in her tone of voice.
"Well I will then," Elena declared.
"Fine," Rosalind snapped. "Go ahead it's your funeral."
"Right" said Elena forcefully, addressing the others. "What am I doing?"
"Why swimming into the tank to fish out the materia," said Reno smiling evilly.
Oh drat. I totally should have seen that coming Elena thought.
AN: This is my first fic so I'd love any advice so pretty please review. Are they out of character? Do I use far too many "said"s? I really don't even care if it's a flame because they tend to amuse me.
Edit: I fixed a few mistakes nothing major.
