A/N: Phew, I finally did it. I'm gonna be pretty slow at the moment with my exams and stuff that are going on. Stick with me guys, I'll sort myself out eventually :)

Enjoy

Chapter 35

The night wind blew softly, blowing the hair off of Elena's face. She swallowed hard as she stared at the building they were standing before. The moon hanging in the sky just behind it didn't help Elena's foreboding feeling.

"Are you ready?" Phoenix asked her gently. Elena turned to face her companion, feeling slightly guilty. At the end of the day, this was ultimately Elena's fault; she was the one who had brought the whole thing up in the first place. But as she stared at Phoenix's pale face, and the dark red marks below his eyes, it made her more determined to disturb this balance she had gotten herself into these last few months.

Elena nodded and Phoenix smiled at her encouragingly. She hadn't really thought about how hard this was going to be for her, since the last time she saw this place was when she was leaving Reno's dead body behind. She felt tears burning her eyes as she approached the entrance with Phoenix by her side, she remembered that day they left, and they thought Rude had gone as well. It turned out Rude had gone back for Yuffie, just to show that Reno's death was not in vain.

Elena and Phoenix were just about to step inside the building when a desperate cry came behind them.

"Wait!" Elena turned to see Rihanna running towards them. "Please."

"Rihanna…" Elena sighed as the redhead stopped running. "Please just go…"

"No." Rihanna said stubbornly. "I'm not going anywhere, except from with you. You don't understand why I want in on this?"

"Of course I understand." Elena said. "But…"

The blonde paused for a moment. Was she still being selfish by not letting Rihanna come? Reno was as much her business as Elena's and Phoenix's, if not more. And if anything were to happen to Elena or Phoenix, then Rihanna was going to experience even more loss… how was she to cope with that?

"Come on." She said, deciding to try to finally do what was right.

It was just as dark as Elena remembered, and everything was exactly the same. Only one thing was different. Just ahead of her, where the tall statue used to be in the middle of the hall, a small, white rectangular item lay on the floor. She walked cautiously over to it and picked it up.

"It's here…" she said quietly as Phoenix and Rihanna followed her. "The book… how did it get here?"

All at once, she felt the book being snatched out of her hands; she looked up and saw Phoenix, his face sheet white. He opened the book and flicked through vaguely.

"Leave it here." He said quietly.

"What? Why?" Elena asked him.

"Just leave it."

"Phoenix." Rihanna piped up. "If you're hiding anything from us…"

"I'm not. Come on."

The black-haired man walked forwards, not to be followed by the other two Turks. He didn't seem to care though. Elena stared at his retreating form in confusion. He was acting differently already, or maybe he wasn't; Elena wasn't too sure. Maybe it was just that she had felt so much closer to him; because of the tattoos perhaps… it was like she almost had Reno back.

But of course, she didn't. Signalling Rihanna to follow, Elena ran to catch up with Phoenix.

"Do you know where you're going?" she asked him.

"Vaguely." He said bluntly. Elena sighed and took a swift step forward to stand in front of Phoenix. "What are you doing?"

"Just stop." Elena said, slightly angrily. "What are you hiding from us? Since we stepped in here you've turned so stoic."

"I dunno…" he shrugged his bony shoulders. Elena shot him a glare and he sighed, closing his eyes briefly. "I just… being back here. It seems to make things clearer for me."

"What do you mean?" Elena asked, her eyebrows knitted.

"I don't know… maybe I'm being stupid. But I just… I'm not sure if the memories that are returning to me are still mine or not."
"Well, what are they?" Rihanna said.

"I'd… rather not say, I'm not proud of a lot of things I've done,"

"Hmm… come on." Elena said. They would never find anything out unless they went deeper into the whole thing. They needed to find the memories that had been left behind that day. They needed to piece it all back together, and then maybe, just maybe Elena would be one step closer to learning the truth.