Eliza sighed in relief as she toweled dry, the grime from last nights ordeal stripped from her body by a pumice stone coated in perfumed shower gels and scalding hot water. She felt refreshed and, as she watched the last of the steamy water get soaked into the towel, much less concerned by her body guard's unfortunate identity. She didn't take the time to notice that the broken window from the night before had already been replaced and the few objects that had been stolen from her had been given the same treatment. Her room was as it always had been, filled with things she didn't want or couldn't use; but perhaps it should have bothered her that everything, including the maid who had used the last of her strength to warn her to safety, had already been replaced in the short span of a few hours. Instead she busied herself with the now and felt that her hands were too full trying to deal with Reno and his hideous iguana for her to spend much time worrying about real problems. She had thought up a few retorts for the pesky red-head's insults that she would try out the next time he tried to verbally back-hand her, but for now she simply wanted to avoid the clown. He and his iguana would cause her more stress than she could handle and she knew it. However, she didn't want to stay cooped up in her spacious room where there was nothing to do, despite the television, stereo system, computer, and multiple gaming systems that were all gathering dust in their given spaces in a wooden entertainment center that had likely not been opened at any point in the last year, they had not even been opened by the crooks the night before who could have made lucrative profit by selling the various technologies. Perhaps a dusty wooden cabinet was the best way to deter theft.
Eliza searched through the many clothes in her closet and pulled out her favorite bikini, one of two that she actually wore despite the fact that she had lost count of how many she had stockpiled in her filled to the brim closet. She slipped it on, hoping that the pesky red-head had no desire to use the pool. All Eliza wanted to do was float around on a pool mat and possibly do a few dives off of the diving board and she didn't want an audience of one to scoff at her while she did it.
Eliza peered out of her room, towel wrapped around her chest and held tightly closed. She wasn't ashamed of her body in any way, in fact she was proud that she was able to look beautiful without any of the cosmetic surgeries that the tabloids and magazines accused her of scandalously getting, but if the red-head turned out to be a pervert she wanted to have something to hide behind. She slipped down the stairs, her bare feet making light slapping noises against the marble flooring. Reno had left the living room, obviously unable to figure out how the television worked. Eliza scoffed at him in her head and turned the television off, noting that Reno had missed the button specifically labeled for opening the wall up to reveal the television. She walked down the hall, refusing to note that the broken windows that had lined the wall had already been replaced and the glass that had littered the floor had been cleaned up without leaving the smallest scratch on the marble to show that there had been any damage done to the mansion at all. Any ripped painting had been removed and replaced with and exact replica and broken vases had simply been discarded and new sculptures or flower arrangements replaced them.
Eliza peered into the pool room, groaning in disbelief as she saw the iguana sprawled by the side of the pool, its eyes closed as it basked in the luxury of the heated tile floor. The pool room itself had been the site of a drowning the night before, a butler had managed to catch one of the crooks unawares and had done him in, giving the Turks and Soldiers investigating the break in one of their only clues to who the men who had attacked were, but the pool room itself had no more evidence to give as everything had been cleaned and the corpse had been removed. Everything had been scoured and repaired and, had Eliza thought about it enough to realize it, the pool water had probably been drained and replaced earlier that morning. Of course, it was almost not morning now, the pool clock on the wall told Eliza she had spent more than an hour scrubbing away the evidence of last night from her thin frame. As she took a moment to think on the fact, now that she had been cleaned all evidence of the night before had been totally removed from the mansion, if not from the face of the Planet entirely. The only evidence of the ordeal was locked in filing cabinets at the Shinra building and inside the minds of those who had been involved in the instance.
Eliza took a quick look around the pool room, deciding it was free of red-heads and that it might be safe to enter. She went to her pool chair and set her towel on it, firmly believing that if she left the iguana alone, it would leave her alone. However, Trevor considered her a trespasser and he didn't take kindly to trespassers. He gave her an evil stare as she pulled her pool mat out of the storage closet that held more pool toys and gear than any one person could ever need or use at once. Eliza shuddered and gave Trevor a glance, shrieking as he ran towards her and jumping into the pool, mat thrown under her to keep her from submerging without being prepared for it. She got herself situated on the pool mat and floated away from the irritable and disgusting iguana, frowning as it hissed at her. She stuck her tongue out at it and tried to regain control over her racing heart, wishing she had had time to turn the stereo system on so she could have at least put some music on to relax to.
Reno rushed in, EMR drawn and eyes wild. After a quick look around the room, he turned his angry eyes to Eliza, voice gravelly and rough. "What the fuck did you scream for!"
"That thing tried to attack me!" Eliza protested, pointing at Trevor accusingly as the iguana snagged one of Reno's toes in its scaly maw.
"Trevor doesn't have teeth what the fuck are you scared of!" Reno frowned and shook Trevor off of his toe. "He can pinch hard but damn, you screamed like someone was coming at you with a knife!"
Eliza frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. "I want it out of here! Besides, if he drinks the chlorine water he'll die."
"Babe, he's had worse to drink." Reno rolled his eyes and picked the squirming iguana up, setting him outside the door and giving his hindquarters a gentle slap. "Get your fat ass somewhere else. You're scaring the brat."
Trevor hissed and ran off, scaly legs gyrating in a comical fashion.
Reno turned back to Eliza, jabbing his EMR at her and holding up four fingers. "Rule number four; no fucking screaming unless someone is killing you. Got it?"
"Why the hell do you get to set all the rules!" Eliza frowned and sat up, surprised at her own boldness.
"Because you haven't spoken up yet, bimbo, and Ruffie left my happy-dandy ass in charge so you're going to have to follow my rules and like it, got it?" Reno frowned and collapsed his EMR, tucking it into one of his many pockets.
"I don't give two shits what Rufus did! I will not be treated like a child! Rule number five; you make one more rule and I'll toss every bottle of alcohol in this house down the drain and watch you go through withdrawal!" Eliza held up five fingers, her voice cracking at the level of force she put behind it. Eliza wasn't a yeller, at least not when she was angry. However, Reno had pushed more than one of her buttons in the last five minutes and apparently the combination he used set her off.
Reno frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. "I move for an amendment to your rule."
"What?" Eliza had expected outright protest, what was Reno talking about, amendments?
"I want to amend your rule. I want the word unnecessary to be put in before rule." Reno watched Eliza float across the pool, her face drawn tight with anger and her eyes shinning confusion. He had to admit, as much as he loathed her, she was cute when she was mad.
"So, now rule five is 'if you make one more unnecessary rule I get to toss all the alcohol down the drain and watch you go through withdrawal'?" Eliza raised an eyebrow, still mad but able to accept the change to the rule, after all, Reno may need to make actual rules later on to keep her safe.
"Exactly. Just so we can have a few serious rules made eventually without you tossing out all the booze." Reno looked around the pool room, staring at the piles of pool toys Eliza had accidentally knocked out of the closet.
"Okay, I can handle that." Eliza lay back on her pool mat, her anger ebbing as she floated around.
"Good." Reno started sifting through the pool toys, grinning. He hadn't been in a pool in years and he was going to jump on the chance to use Eliza's whenever he got it. He figured if she was in here, he was simply doing his duty as her guard to be in the pool too. "I'll be back, stay."
"Sure." Eliza sighed, not liking that Reno gave her commands like she was a dog. Reno rushed out of the room and Eliza lay back against the mat, closing her eyes and sincerely hoping that the pest didn't come back.
Author's Note: Trevor you brute! It must be because Reno still hasn't found him that drink…