"So…" Yuffie sat cross-legged on the floor. "This is… kinda awkward."

Tifa nodded, unsure of what to say in response. She'd settled on the sofa in Barret's cabin and an exhausted Marlene had fallen asleep in her lap as Tifa had played with her hair. Without the wide-eyed girl's questions as a buffer, silence had quickly permeated the air around them.

Elena hovered near the door, arms folded, looking every bit as awkward to be there as Yuffie sounded. The pretty blonde looked tired; it'd scarcely been five hours since she'd been told to go and get some rest, and she'd been unceremoniously dragged back into the world of the upright and put back to work.

"You should get some sleep," Tifa offered. "We'll be okay."

"Yeah, we can totally hold the fort," Yuffie agreed.

"Orders are orders." Elena shrugged slightly. "I'm okay."

Tifa nodded. Silence uncomfortably resumed.

Barret hadn't been happy about leaving Marlene but had eventually relented. Between the three of them they were more than capable of keeping her safe, and the fact their security detail were being picked off one by one warranted as many hands on deck as possible. Cloud had levelly explained the plan he and Tseng had concocted, and Barret had kissed Marlene on the cheek and promised he'd be back soon. He'd paused before leaving to squeeze Tifa's shoulder, eyes warm with concern at her wan expression. After that, she'd tried her hardest to keep her internal conflict away from her face.

The effort was exhausting. The argument with Reno was still fresh and had been playing on repeat since she'd turned on her heel and walked away from him.

"So…" Yuffie tried again. "How 'bout that weather?"

Elena snorted. "I'm bad at this."

"Us too!" Yuffie giggled. "Aren't we supposed to start talking about boys and having pillow fights?"

"Something like that," Tifa murmured, trying to show an interest in their idle chit-chat.

"I don't do this very often," Elena admitted. "The guys are great and all but it's a different kind of conversation."

"I know!" Yuffie's enthusiasm was only growing. "Barret's all bang-bang and Cid just smokes and swears all the time and Vincent's just grrrrr…" She hooked her fingers into claws and scrunched her face into something resembling a snarl. "And then Cloud…"

Yuffie fell silent, glancing in Tifa's direction.

"Cloud's Cloud," Tifa replied distractedly. "Red's good for a chat though."

Between Cloud and Reno, Tifa's thoughts were a tangled mess. She knew she owed Cloud an apology of some sort, though she'd barely had the chance to sit and formulate the words. Frustration at her situation had blinded her to the bigger picture; Cloud was hurting and, as was so often the case, he didn't know where to turn. He needed a friend, and that she would gladly be, provided she could think of a way to broach the conversation.

And Reno?

The dull ache in her stomach suggested things weren't so cut and dry there. Barret's words, though difficult, had only echoed what she felt in her heart, lending fuel to the fire. She couldn't fall for Reno; there was too much bad blood, too much heartache, too many bad memories. It should've been easy really, to stand behind her conviction when she'd told him that she'd made a mistake. On paper that was clearly what it was, an action spurred by loneliness and charged by adrenaline.

And yet…

His words had stung, but Tifa was used to nasty comments. You didn't grow up around boys without childish name-calling, and you certainly didn't work behind a bar without receiving your fair share of deprecating commentary. Reno's self-defence tactics in the face of her one-eighty on their night together were to be expected. No… The thing that had hurt the most was the look in those blue eyes when he'd spat his words at her. He was hurting and she'd caused it, and that hurt her more than she cared to admit. It was easy to tell herself that the Turk had no feelings, but clearly, things weren't so cut and dry.

"What's the deal with you and Cloud?" Elena sounded curious.

Tifa frowned, thrown by the somewhat blunt question. "We're friends."

"Right." Elena tilted her head, scrutinising. "Doesn't he live with you?"

"Sometimes." Tifa resisted the urge to shift her position, not wanting to disturb Marlene but made uncomfortable by the conversation. "It's complicated."

"That's one way of putting it," Yuffie pointed out. "SOLDIER First-Class? More like IDIOT First-Class if you ask me."

"It's nobody's fault," Tifa insisted. "It just wasn't meant to be."

That much was true; wrong place, wrong time, and wrong chain of events. The Cloud and Tifa that had sat and made promises by the well in Nibelheim were two very different children to the adults they'd grown into, be that for better or for worse. Nobody could be blamed for the way things had turned out, but they could be blamed for allowing their friendship to continue to deteriorate.

"So you two aren't a thing?" Elena pressed.

Tifa shook her head, unsettled by the shrewd look on Elena's face. "No."

The Turk opened her mouth as though to ask another question, but snapped it shut quickly. Silence returned. Unsurprisingly it was Yuffie that broke it.

"What about the Turks?" She directed the question at Elena, eyebrows raised.

"Well…" She paused, giving her answer some consideration. When she finally answered her tone dripped false diplomacy. "They're great."

"They do your head in, don't they?" Yuffie asked conspiratorially.

Elena's shoulders sagged. "All the time."

Yuffie laughed, drawing a square in the air with her index fingers. "No judgement in these four walls. No Siree! So spill."

Elena narrowed her eyes. "Where do I even start?"

"Rude!" Yuffie's answer was a little too fast, and her realisation was accompanied by a flush of colour through her cheeks. "Er… I mean…"

Tifa stared at her friend and noticed Elena doing the same, the intrigue clear in her expression. Whilst Yuffie had never been afraid of voicing her opinions when it came to men, Tifa had never heard mention of any of the Turks before. Somewhere in her heart, a tiny spark flickered; perhaps this meant Yuffie would be open to helping her iron out what was going on in her head.

"He's hot," Yuffie replied, folding her arms sullenly, daring them to challenge her. "He is!"

"He's sweet," Tifa added carefully, thinking back to the previous afternoon spent deep in conversation with the stoic Turk before everything had gotten way too complicated.

"He's got the tall, dark and handsome thing down," Elena supplied. "I can see it. And you're right, total sweetheart most of the time."

Yuffie's face lit up. "He is fine."

"He's okay," Elena conceded.

"Heh… Well, we all know who you like."

"Don't know what you're talking about," Elena replied haughtily.

"I heard you." Yuffie was grinning now. "Arguing with your boss… There's totally something going on with you two."

"No there isn't."

Tifa noticed the way Elena was squirming under Yuffie's interrogation and tried to distract her from the situation. "Shouldn't we be talking about something more important?"

"More important than blondie screwing her boss?"

Tifa baulked slightly. "People are trying to kill us."

"There's always people trying to kill us," Yuffie pointed out ruefully. Tifa didn't miss her pointed glance at Elena. "And I don't know the ins and outs anyway. I was just looking out for Barret."

"You wouldn't have thought a man with a machine gun for an arm would get himself into so much trouble," said Elena, ignoring Yuffie's glare.

"You'd be surprised." Tifa's laugh was short, her next question directed at Yuffie. "How did you even get mixed up in this?"

"Well, Cid heard that Barret was in North Corel and these guys were up to something." She jerked her head in Elena's direction. "So I offered to swing by and check-in. And then when I got there he'd got this black eye and I just knew something was going on. And I thought what would Tifa do? So I stuck my nose in."

"Right," Tifa replied dryly.

"Not that I think you stick your nose in," Yuffie corrected herself quickly. "It's just I knew you'd be worried 'cause you always worry about everyone. So I thought I'd help out. And then you know… It all kinda blew up in our faces."

"Kinda?" Elena scoffed. "You were literally about to be blown sky-high."

"Huh… Guess I never thanked you for that." Yuffie smiled weakly. "That's some skills you've got."

"Basic training really," Elena replied with a self-deprecating shrug.

"You defused a bomb. In like…thirty seconds flat. That's not basic. That's skills."

"I guess." Elena grinned. "I'm faster than the guys."

Tifa took note of the change in her posture, the way she sat up a little straighter and had visibly brightened at Yuffie's praise. She'd seen a reaction like that before, on Denzel's face; a child eager to prove himself at all costs. Tifa knew herself what it felt like to have to prove her worth to those around her, to those who presumed that she was weak and needed looking after. She'd only seen Elena in action once, and there had been little time to register her technique between dodging Rude's fists and Reno's mag-rod. Tifa had limped away from the battle with an impression of a woman that fought just as, if not more competently than her colleagues.

"So training, huh? Like Turk School?" Yuffie sat up, interested.

"Something like that, yeah," Elena agreed. "Shinra Military Academy."

"What else did you learn?" Tifa asked.

"My speciality is firearms, like my sister. And martial arts."

"Oh Tifa's great at martial arts," boasted Yuffie excitedly. "And I know a trick or two. We should spar!"

"No!" Tifa cut in quickly. "Nobody is sparring with anybody."

It was far too easy to see that scenario going horribly wrong, and Tifa didn't much feel like peeling either of the women off the cabin floor.

"No fair," Yuffie complained. She turned her attention back to Elena. "I bet you were a proper geek at Turk School."

"I was top of my class." Elena might have been blushing but her proud smile said it all. "Five Elite Emblems. Most they've ever seen."

"See… Geek!"

"Heh…" Elena shrugged. "I worked hard."

"Probably helps that you're boning your teacher."

"Tseng wasn't my teacher," Elena corrected her. "He's just my boss."

"Just your boss?"

"Well, not exactly…" she finally admitted. "We live together."

"Shit," Yuffie's eyes widened. "So you guys are the real deal?"

"I guess," she smiled shyly. "We've been together a while now."

"Tell us everything." Yuffie leaned forwards, chin propped on her hands. Both her voice and her pose screamed her interest in the conversation. "We want all the deets."

"Maybe not all of them," Tifa quickly pointed out.

"All the deets," she repeated adamantly.

"The guys only just found out about us." Looking rather like a woman backed into a corner, Elena finally gave up and sat down on the floor next to Yuffie. "And they're not exactly easy to talk to about stuff like this. So this is kinda weird for me."

"That doesn't surprise me," Tifa said, with feeling. "Try having a girly conversation with Barret and Cloud."

"Or Cid." Yuffie visibly shuddered, her voice slipping into a passable impression of the aeronaut's gruff drawl. "Quit your goddamn whining and drink your goddamn tea!"

"Yeah okay," Elena accepted. "You win."

"Come on!" Yuffie lengthened her vowels to emphasise her point. "How did you two end up doing the nasty?"

"Yuffie!" Tifa cut her off the second she saw the girl's hands move, having already worked out the explicit gesture they were about to form.

Yuffie turned to her with an expression of carefully structured innocence shining in her dark eyes. Tifa shook her head, disbelieving.

"He asked me out a long time ago... But then he ran into Sephiroth and I guess we just never got round to it after he healed up." A glimmer of something dark flashed across Elena's face, her voice taking on a slightly bitter edge. "Happens quite a lot. Perks of the job I guess."

"So how did you…" Yuffie trailed off expectantly.

"We were working late." Elena tucked her hair behind her ears. "It just kinda happened."

"Where?"

Elena's cheeks were scarlet. When she finally answered her voice was barely a mumble. "On his desk."

"Yes, girl!" Yuffie pumped her fist in the air. "So he came on to you, right?"

"Heh… Yeah." Her face had turned wistful. "We were fighting about something stupid. I'd made a mistake on a report Reno should've handed in. I think he was more pissed that I was doing Reno's job for him."

"So you were fighting and then…" Yuffie's tone was mischievous.

"I think I told him to go fuck himself." She buried her face in her hands, giggling nervously. "Let's just say that is not what he did."

"Hoo boy," Yuffie fanned herself.

Elena had relaxed considerably since she'd first walked into the cabin. It was difficult to reconcile their tricky past with everything that was currently going on; Tifa knew that better than anybody. But as Elena had started to loosen up Tifa began to realise just how much she'd maybe missed this kind of conversation. Although she'd been resistant at first, Tifa had found herself easily falling into it, thinking back to the days when she and Yuffie had sat with Aerith and just chatted. Yuffie called a lot, but something was inherently relaxing about sitting in a room, face-to-face, and chewing the fat.

A small part of her wanted to throw caution to the wind and admit to the turmoil in her head. Elena had some experience of inappropriate relationships, and she knew Reno far better than Tifa did. And Yuffie wasn't the sort to judge, her ill feelings more closely tied to Shinra as a whole rather than the Turks as a unit. Her choice of bedfellow might shock her friend, but wouldn't inspire the same anger it did in Cloud or Barret. Perhaps these two pairs of ears would be able to offer her some insight, help her set her head straight.

Owning up to her dalliance with Reno wasn't something she felt comfortable doing, however. Unluckily the choice was taken out of her hands.

"What's going on with you and Reno?" The question came out of the blue, Elena's astute expression suggesting she already knew far more than Tifa had anticipated.

"Nothing," she stammered, thrown for a loop.

"What?" Yuffie stared at Elena, confused.

"You two looked pretty riled up in that photo…" She trailed off as realisation dawned. "Oh… You hadn't told anybody about that, huh?"

Tifa shook her head slowly.

"What photo?" Yuffie demanded. "What were you doing?"

"How did you see the photo?" Tifa's voice was hollow.

"Tseng sent me in to clear the cabin," Elena explained, no trace of judgement in her tone. "It was on the floor. I didn't show it to anybody else."

Tifa inhaled slowly. "Thanks."

"What photo?"

"Erin's a little snap-happy," Elena clarified, barrelling on regardless. "There was a photo of Tifa and… You know what… It's not important."

"Tifa and Reno?"

"Um…." Elena glanced at Tifa, dark eyes pleading for forgiveness. Her attempt to change the subject was clumsy, to say the least. "Say… That Marlene's a real sweetheart, right?"

Tifa stared at her hands, her fingers completely still in Marlene's silky hair. The confused mixture of emotions spiralled through her. The guilt at betraying her friends, betraying herself. Heartache over the fight with Cloud, heartache over the fight with him. Confusion over the way she felt, the traitorous way her body reacted to a man she should hate with every fibre of her being. The butterflies in her stomach when he smiled at her. The feeling of utter contentment when he'd wrapped his arms around her…

"Tifa and Reno?" Yuffie repeated, changing her inflexion for emphasis.

"They were only kissing," Elena supplied, realising that her ploy to distract Yuffie had failed and trying to fill in some of the gaps Tifa's lack of a response was leaving instead. "People kiss each other all the time. No big deal. It's not like they're sleeping together or anything…"

As Tifa felt the colour rise through her cheeks she watched the penny drop in Elena's head.

"Oh…"

"Wait a darn minute," Yuffie shrieked. "Tifa? You're boning Reno?"

Unable to give voice to a good enough response, she remained silent.

"Reno," Yuffie repeated, doggedly determined to get to the bottom of things. "As in Reno of the Turks?"

"In my defence, I thought you'd have already told her," Elena said hurriedly. "Sorry."

"It's okay," Tifa replied quietly, refusing to meet either of the eyes that were boring into her. "It was a mistake."

"Don't tell me," Elena's tone was resigned. "He's already done something to fuck it up?"

"No," she protested weakly. "It's nothing. We spent the night together. It was a bad idea. That's all it was."

It wasn't entirely nothing. She fiddled with the seam of the leather cushion beneath her legs.

"You spent the night together?" Elena echoed, surprise clear in her voice. "You slept with Reno… And he was still there in the morning?"

"Yeah," she replied, uncertain of the correct response.

"Shit." Elena kicked her foot out in front of her, balancing her arms on her raised knee as though settling in for the long haul. "That's… a thing."

"I have questions," said Yuffie, shifting her weight and making herself comfortable too. "So many questions."

"I don't want to talk about it," Tifa said quickly.

That wasn't strictly true; she wanted to talk about it very much, but she wasn't entirely sure where to start. And she wasn't used to opening up to anybody, especially not regarding matters so knotted around her heart. Used to dealing with her thoughts on her own, the sudden interest in her situation had caught her completely off guard.

"It's not like you've done anything wrong," Elena pointed out, accurately voicing one of the insidious thoughts that were chasing each other around Tifa's head. "No judgement in here, remember? And he's not a bad guy."

"Well…" Yuffie's voice had gone squeaky. "He did kinda squish…" She trailed off, noting Tifa's stricken expression, and quickly changed tack. "He is hella cute. If that's what you're into."

"Oh yeah," Elena agreed. "He's definitely got something."

"Definitely," Yuffie parroted.

They both stared at her expectantly.

"I don't know what you want me to say," she replied, a little snappily. This was not something she wanted placing under scrutiny.

"Maybe you should start from the beginning?" Elena suggested.

The beginning? What did that even mean? The part where they'd fought on the maintenance platform, where he could've easily killed her? When he'd dropped the plate? Gongaga, Wutai, the Gelnika… A desperate fight in the tunnels below Midgar?

Or when she'd woken up in Denzel's bed, dazed and aching, to find Rude and him standing over her and Cloud passed out at her side… Welcome hands in the fight against Bahamut and the remnants… The awkward conversations when he'd first started turning up at the bar, all those months before… Realising that he'd recognised her struggle; that he cared that she'd been abandoned, that she was stuck…

Wanting to kiss him… Kissing him, and only wanting to kiss him again. Seeing the shades of grey that he wore and allowing herself to get lost within them.

Falling into bed with him…

"Tifa?" Unusually, Yuffie sounded uncertain. "You okay?"

Tifa didn't reply, not entirely sure what the right answer was. Instead, she resumed stroking Marlene's hair, almost wishing the child would wake up and save her from the barrage of uncomfortable questions she'd suddenly been subjected to.

"Only you're doing that thing you do," Yuffie pressed gently. "Where you go all… quiet."

"I'm okay."

"I know you," she pointed out. "You overthink everything. You didn't just jump a Turk's bones for no reason."

"Do you like him?" Elena asked.

Yes. The answer sprang, unbidden, to the forefront of her mind before she could overanalyse it, provoked by the bluntness of the question. How easily it formed scared her.

"I can't," Tifa replied.

"But do you?"

"I don't know," she lied. "It's complicated."

She focused on the gentle movement of her fingers through Marlene's hair, watching the soft strands part against her fingertips. Marlene sighed contentedly in her sleep.

"What if it wasn't?" Elena wasn't about to drop her line of questioning.

Her point seemed moot. "But it is."

Yuffie frowned, her tone sceptical. "You wouldn't have bumped uglies if you didn't like him."

Tifa didn't respond, unwilling to admit that her friend had a point.

"I did wonder." Elena stared, gears turning behind her eyes. "At the hospital, he gave you his jacket. And he knew where to find you because you were already with him, right?"

"Yeah."

"So how many times have you…" Yuffie trailed off when she noticed Tifa's embarrassed expression. "Hey! It's a valid question. We need to know how serious this is."

"It's not serious at all. I slept with him," she replied, a little too defensively. "It's not like we're dating."

"Keep telling yourself that." Elena grinned. "That's what I told myself the first time with Tseng… and the second time… Heh... and the third time actually."

"There hasn't been a second time," she insisted, opting to leave out the finer details. The void of the night had been filled by quite a few times if you wanted to get technical, and so had the early hours of the morning. That was something she didn't want to broach in conversation with either of the women that were eagerly watching her squirm. The memory made her temperature soar.

"Yet." Yuffie sniggered.

"There won't be a second time," she replied.

"Why not? You've got a crush on him, don't cha?" Yuffie raised her eyebrows, daring Tifa to try and deny it again. "There's no point trying to lie to me."

"Fine." Tifa sighed. "I've got a crush on him. I think."

Elena nodded, apparently satisfied. "Then I don't see the issue."

"I mean… Barret and Cloud will probably be pissed," Yuffie pointed out carefully. "And Cid maybe… But Red and Vincent probably won't mind."

"Do you?" Tifa asked quietly.

Yuffie considered this, twirling a strand of dark hair around her index finger. "Nah. But if he tries anything dodgy I'll kick his ass."

"We argued," Tifa admitted. "I told him I'd made a mistake. He was angry."

"He'll get over it." Elena shrugged. "Why do you think you made a mistake?"

"Because…" she closed her eyes, trying to put her thoughts in order. She didn't know how to say what was tumbling through her head. Chagrined, her voice turned apologetic. "He's a Turk."

"We're not bad people," Elena assured her, slightly coolly.

"There's a lot of history," she responded vaguely.

"It wasn't an easy order for him to follow. For either of them."

"But they still followed it," she countered.

"We thought you guys were the bad guys," Elena replied. "Perspective is important. And I don't think a day goes by where they don't regret what they did."

"How do you know?"

"When I was recruited they were both a fucking mess. Rude's learned to cope with it now but Reno hasn't. If he can't drink it, screw it or fight it he hasn't got the patience to deal with it." Elena ticked her points off on her fingers. "First few months I worked with him I hated him. He was always angry, or drunk or worse. Tseng had to threaten to cut him off in the end if he didn't sort himself out. Lucky for us he did."

"Let me be the bad guy here." Yuffie held her hands up, watching Tifa carefully. "He killed a ton of people but he feels real bad about it. Is that enough to justify banging him again?"

As was often the case, Yuffie's blunt terminology had almost hit the nail on the head. Whilst the night before had undoubtedly soothed her soul a little, it was the tantalising glimpse of something else that had her running round in circles.

"I don't know," Elena conceded. "But he's trying."

"He didn't think he had a choice," Tifa explained quietly. "It was the Turks or us. I don't agree with what they did but I think I understand. Maybe..."

"We're a family," Elena replied, echoing words Tifa had heard from Reno's lips such a short while previously. "We look after each other."

"But I don't think my family will ever understand," Tifa said, voicing another concern that had reared its ugly head. "Barret won't ever forgive him."

Yuffie exhaled loudly, a snort of derision that backed up Tifa's worried words.

"Can you?" Elena asked.

"I don't know," she admitted, opting for honesty. "I hope so."

"Well does it matter what anybody else thinks?" Elena's blunt appraisal of the situation was a much-needed breath of fresh air. "You need to get your head sorted out before you start worrying about anybody else's. Trust me."

"She ain't wrong," Yuffie agreed, grinning slyly. "And if you thought it really and truly mattered you wouldn't be so darn conflicted about it."

"Maybe," Tifa admitted. "He told me about Veld. It made sense at the time."

"He did?" Elena sounded surprised.

She nodded.

"It took me years to get him to open up to me. He got through three shrinks before Tseng gave up and stopped ordering him to go to sessions," Elena said, pouting slightly. Her next comment came off the cuff, mirth in her voice. "He must have it bad if he's making this much effort."

Tifa felt the heat rising in her face.

Elena backtracked, realising she'd perhaps said too much. "Reno's not the type… I mean… He's got a heart of gold somewhere in there. He just doesn't usually let people see it."

"You care about him a lot," Tifa observed.

"We care about each other." She smiled. "Like I said. Family."

"So…" Yuffie raised her eyebrows. "What're you gonna do?"

"I don't know." This was the crux of the issue; where did they go from here? "For all I know I'm reading too much into this whole thing."

He'd probably already gotten what he wanted out of the situation, she reasoned, but a small voice in her heart voiced its uncertainty. She'd hurt him, and that suggested something, she just wasn't sure what exactly.

Elena chuckled. "One thing I do know about Reno… It takes a lot to distract him if he decides he wants something."

The sound of Elena's PHS ringing halted the conversation before Tifa could respond to that concept. She squinted at the screen before pressing it to her ear. "Did you find anything?"

"There's no way he wouldn't be interested in a curtain call," said Yuffie loyally, speaking over Elena's head. "You've just gotta make your mind up."

"How bad?" Any trace of humour had slid from the blonde's face, and Tifa felt her stomach drop at the anger in her voice. "Yeah okay… I'll meet you there... No everything's fine here." Her voice softened slightly. "Stop worrying."

"What's happened?" Tifa demanded, as soon as she cut the call.

"Reno found Erin." Elena's face was grim. "He's hurt."