A/N: Sorry for the wait, I've been busy with school projects. This is a completely pointless chapter, basically a 500 word long description of Elena's feelings, but hey, nevermind. I was listening to a few good songs that inspires this chapter, so I put some of the lyrics in the chapter.

I don't own the songs Linkin Park - Leave out all the Rest, or Blink 182 - All of This.

Enjoy

Chapter 25

When my time comes, forget the wrong that I've done. Help me leave behind some reasons to be missed.

Don't resent me, and when you're feeling empty, keep me in your memory.

Leave out all the rest.

The young blonde woman paused, chewing on her pen. She was supposed to be working, but she couldn't concentrate. She was starting to wonder if there hadn't been truth in some of Yuffie's logic.

Perhaps Elena wasn't looking at the big picture. Maybe she had been too wrapped up in her own grief over losing Reno… that desperate to find something else to cling on to; had she completely lost grip on reality? Was Phoenix that much like Reno, or was she slowly but steadily forgetting what the red-head she had known was really like?

Somehow it upset her that she was thinking this. She had felt completely in control of her emotions, up until now. Yuffie had made her unstable in her thinking, and she needed to resolve it. She just didn't know how to.

Deep inside her mind, she knew there was some truth in her own logic. That first day she had seen Phoenix, she had made eye contact with him, not knowing that he would rarely see that again. But at that moment, her heart had leapt, and Reno was the first thing that sprang to her mind. She definitely had her grip on reality then. So what was different now?

Had she perhaps continued with her strong grip on reality through the whole time? Maybe she was just looking at it from the wrong angle… she was looking for the points about Phoenix that reminded her of Reno, to attempt to fill that gap.

"That's it…" Elena said to herself, putting her head down to attempt to carry on working. She would just have to get to know Phoenix… not Reno. Then she remembered…

"Phoenix? You're hair isn't naturally black is it?"

How could she have been so stupid? That was a prime example to prove her theory. She had been looking for things about Phoenix to compare with Reno. But then there was the conversation she had had with Rihanna a while ago… about taking things into their own hands. What if she lost a chance to get Reno back? But then again, what were the odds of that happening?

With all of this I know now

Everything inside of my head

It all just goes to show

Nothing changes me at all.

Again I wait for this to change instead

To tear the world in two

Another night with him

But I'm always wanting you.

It was no good, she was chasing these thoughts around in circles, and she was getting nowhere. There were three things she could do; she could talk directly to Phoenix about it; she could talk to someone else about it; or, she could keep it to herself, and carry on the way she had been doing.

Ultimately, the third one would be best, and easiest. But she would either have to find out what Phoenix's real deal was, or just get used to the fact that he wasn't Reno, and she would never get him back.