Author's Note: Round two. I wanted to make sure people actually check the Crossovers section before I continued on, the review whore I am.

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In Stride: Chapter II

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Elena awoke the next morning with some faint scraps of a hangover, which was understandable. She'd never be top contender for a drinking contest, and everyone knew it, so she never took in too much to handle the day after. Even if she could, it would be a bad thing for a Turk to do. She didn't know how Reno could take that, as he did so often.

The sun crept over the window sill at that moment and happened to land directly on one of his half-opened eyelids. He was one of those people who slept like that constantly. No one knew why, he personally had no proof they weren't all lying to him, and anyone who woke up with him generally called the police before trying to get him out of bed. He rolled over, groaned, and then turned back the other way.

He blinked. "Whose. . .?"

"Mine," she replied, staring at the ceiling. "Second drawer down on my side. I'm not moving."

He rolled his eyes, sat up, and let the sheet fall off himself, suit pants a bit wrinkled. She sank into the mattress as he retrieved a pack of cigarettes, pulling two out and dividing them appropriately. He took a few drags, chuckled at a joke the man fixing the laundry machine had made about racing it for gil, and then got up to make coffee, pulling his shirt on on the way to the kitchen.

Reno and Elena had a very unique friendship. If someone asked if they slept together often, they would both say that they did. If the next person asked when the last time they had sex was, they would honestly say they never had. The blonde had just become very accepting of the fact Reno slept wherever he was for the evening, and she only had one bed. So it was often that they slept in the same room, in the same bed, sometimes wearing absolutely nothing, with small, unspoken romantic attachment.

Rude was probably right in saying that marriage would have evolved to this if counselors had never come into being and they should just get hitched now. It would save them the money later.

Elena turned over and closed her eyes when she heard the coffee machine turn on. "I don't suppose you could put in a double shift and I could sleep, Re?" she called. When she got no response, she called out, "Reno, you alright?"

Suddenly cold, she noticed the blanket had disappeared. She knew he'd taken it, and when she rolled over to yell at him, her clothes hit her face. "I'm gonna have some coffee and hit the beach early," he told her, buttoning up his jacket. "You know, give Rude an easier time if we find anybody major today. Need anything before I take off?"

She took her cigarette from the ashtray and took a drag, looking thoughtful. "Bring me a cup of coffee and we'll be good," she replied, sitting up and looking down at herself. She made a face. "On second thought, just put a cup in the microwave. I've gotta take a shower and get this mud off me." She didn't understand how it was possible for so much gunk to get under a suit.

"Suit yourself," he said, doing as she'd asked and leaving the apartment.

Elena laid in bed until the cigarette was gone, then forced herself to stand up and walk to the kitchen. She knocked a bit of food over into the cat's dish, watched the feline inhale some of it, and then walked to the bathroom to take a shower. The door was nearly closed when her phone rang, and, knowing only the Turks had her work number, she hustled to her bedroom to pick it up. She saw Reno's name on the ID before answering, "What, did somebody steal your car?"

He scoffed on the other end. "I wish. I just called the building and they said Valentine's ready to be checked out, but he's damn near blind. They won't release him without someone there to get him, otherwise they turn him over to the authorities for public execution."

She rubbed her temples. The day already reeked of stuff like this. "Okay, so what's the big deal? Why not let them do that and get him out of our hair?"

"I can't do that!" he yelled, mainly because someone had just pulled in front of him. "Right of way, you fuck! Umm. . .what was I. . .oh, yeah, Valentine. I can't do that, Laney, and you know that. I'm gonna go pick him up, so if I'm not at the beach right away, let Rude know, okay?" His horn blared and he assumed she'd agreed in that second. "You're a doll, babe. See you later."

He got a bit too close to whoever he'd been screaming at and let those sand-safe tire chains do a job on his paint before speeding off.

Reno appreciated the small things in life for totally different reasons than most.

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The redhead couldn't immediately judge Vincent's reaction to being "one of them" again, but his gut told him it might work out. As soon as he'd walked out the door, the crimson clad man had turned, raised his Death Penalty, and shot a bird off of a bench no less than twenty yards away. He'd unloaded the gun to one bullet and put it away with the only hand he had left.

He was as amazing as Tseng had said.

"No doubt the nurses told you what we're doing," Reno said, glancing at the other man. "About the rest of AVALANCHE and all that. I don't know how you feel about that, if you can do it after running around with them for so long."

Vincent was quiet for a moment, then he turned and their eyes met. Reno had a feeling he was the only person who could still glare into your soul with one eye fused shut and the other filled with little bubbles of blood. He had refused an eye patch. "Hojo is dead, is he not?" The other nodded. "Then my business with them is done. It was professional attachment and nothing else. I could have done without the death of Aeris, but at least my life goes on."

Reno tried not to shiver, but that man was ice cold. It was a Turk guideline to never get personally involved, of course, but he was a cut above the rest. He'd gone all the way to saving the world with some people and suddenly they were just statistics to him. "Right," the younger said. "I think we've found three or four so far, but Scarlet says we can't stop until they're all strung up along the beach. Find anything interesting, bring it to -"

"I've been on beach duty."

The redhead shut up until they arrived at the beach, and it wasn't to a calm scene. Elena was trying her hardest to restrain someone, and Rude was nowhere in sight. Reno opened the door of the car and hurried over to the struggle, taking in the new woman. She was tall, with black hair that fell past her waist, a strange outfit that was rippped and revealing, and a skirt made entirely of leather belts, none of which looked any worse for the wear. "Laney!" he called, getting her attention. "What's the deal?"

The woman tried to run at her, swayed, and fell on the sand with a wet thud. "I dunno," the blonde said as the other curled up and began shivering. "I was just gonna take her to the hospital and she started screaming at me. I pulled a gun and told her to calm down, and that's when she started throwing herself at me - said something about an island. . .Bassid, or something. Called my gun a machine. Should we wait for. . ." She suddenly realized that Vincent Valentine was slowly making his way toward them, still in his torn cloak, and quieted herself. "Reno," she whispered. "How can he even walk?"

There was a look of admiration on his face when he patted her shoulder and said, "He's amazing."

A change had also taken place in the woman on the beach. She had looked at the approacing Vincent and her mouth had opened, as if she was too shocked to say something she obviously wanted to. He knelt down next to her and gently felt at her face for a moment. "You're!" she gasped loudly, and then whispered something the two Turks couldn't hear from that distance before passing out.

They went over to help him after the third time he tried to carry her, knowing his arm wasn't long enough for the task. When the stranger was in the back of Reno's car, Vincent looked at them accusingly. "Do either of you know an Auron or why I might be presumed to be him?"

Both shrugged and Elena answered, "Never heard of him. She seems a bit out of it, though. I'll take her to the hospital and th -"

"No," Vincent interrupted. "I will drive her to the hospital. Don't give me that look; if anyone were to know the way to the ShinRa Building from any point in Midgar, it would be myself. I can drive perfectly fine, and if I happen to be too close to any major obstacle, I'm sure the other drivers won't hesistate to tell me. You two wait here for your captain."

Reno tried to protest, saying he could be there and back by the time Rude even thought of going to work, but he took it into his own hands nonetheless, driving back to the main road as accurately as expected.

There was a long silence in which Reno considered calling a few Force officers to stop his car if they saw it and Elena wondered if they'd ever see anything that had just sped off the beach again. Rude arrived in a few minutes, disproving the redhead's theory and calling for an explanation all at once. He had no idea Vincent had even been released, but he would have to be told; the guy was coming back with Reno's car, of course.

"What're you doing, waiting for the tide to go down?" he demanded before there was a chance for the two to speak. "Turn around and look who's floating about ten yards off the coast." He kept walking, apparently going to retrieve it. The others turned around as his foot hit the water, watching him drag the body of Tifa Lockheart back up onto the sand by a green-colored arm. Something was grating his nerves, which meant it was a good day to go elsewhere. "Drive. See if anybody else washed up in the night while I get this taken care of."

It was also a good time to go elsewhere, and they did.

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Rude had just come back from carrying the upper half of Yuffie Kisaragi to her respective pole. The gash at her waist told him something big had gotten to her and they would probably never find the legs. He'd set aside her weapon for replication purposes; they'd only recovered hers and Barret's. What he saw forced him to draw his gun and call out, "Reno!" There was no answer, so he tried, "Elena?" Nothing, but he hadn't expected her to be under a car. He saw the bottom half of a Turk suit sticking out from under his car, and the legs were stirring slightly, so he knew it wasn't one of them taking a nap. "Stop! Turks!" he tried, but the person didn't move. His next idea was to run up, grab a protruding leg, and try to drag them out from under the car.

A shot rang out, and Rude's favorite ring fell off.

"I'll hit your finger next time, Hurst," Vincent said irritably as he crawled out from under the vehicle. He reloaded his Death Penalty, ejecting the shell he'd saved from earlier. "I was running your engine and I noticed you were leaking something, so I'm down here trying to fix it. Are none of you appreciative enough to let me do what I want?" His good eye narrowed. "I'm not some damned cripple - Hojo did much worse."

A hard silence passed before the bald man turned and walked away. He hated Vincent Valentine, and not because of AVALANCHE. He had a personal vendetta against the man in red, ever since he had helped kill Hojo. He shook his head and focused his attention on a large, white lump off the shore. When he'd reached it, he called Reno and started draging it toward the sand. "Reno," he said when the other had picked up. "We're done."

"Done? As in, done, done, off beach duty?" Elena looked up at this, hoping they could dump the body in the back seat off and go back to office work. Reno gave her a thumbs-up and she turned the car around, heading back toward Rude's location. "You found it?" She was only catching half of the conversation, but there was definite relief in her posture. "If it ends this shit, I'll do a lot more than just drag it to the building. Sure, whatever. Out." There was a very long pause, and Elena thought maybe he'd gone into shock on the phone, but then he grinned and said, "Yeah, that guy's a madman, ain't he? . . .Probably got it from the tailor in the building; isn't that gut renowned for having everything on hand? I'm sure they kept one in case he came back, anyway. Alright. Later."

He closed the phone and Elena looked at him expectantly. "Rude just found Cait," he told her, "which means all of AVALANCHE has been recovered and they're guaranteed to be dead." She broke into a grin. "He said they want me to comb the beach twice a week to get whoever else washes up. As soon as we return the cat to Scarlet, we're back in the offices."

She never thought she'd be glad to hear that they were going to be cramped up in offices again, but cleaning up bodies just wasn't her idea of a nice job. Only Rude and Tseng ever really got anything out of handling corpses. "So what was all that about a tailor?"

Reno briefly told her about Rude's encounter with Vincent, and by the time they were done laughing, they had pulled up next to the mangled wreck of Cait Sith. Time seemed to drag by as they strapped it to the top of the car, hauled it back to the building, and prepared for the daily routine of desk jobs again. Vincent would have to be assigned some position, as he didn't seem to be leaving anytime soon, but they knew something would work out.

Something always went Vincent Valentine's way.

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It was maybe three days later when a SOLDIER named Martin Stern found something. Martin had been sent to the beach because Reno was on a Kalm assignment, just in case anything interesting were to surface today, and he hadn't expected much. Martin was just an average kid who kept his nose out of peoples' business, but people liked their business public when it involved the search for a man no one had ever heard of, guided only by mumbled descriptions from a woman on morphine.

The foreigner looked positively soaked and possibly Wutain, but Martin doubted he'd just been out for a swim in that heavy robe. He was wearing sunglasses, but one lens was half broken. There was a large sword strapped to his back in a makeshift sling, and in his right hand was a ceramic jug.

"Hey," Stern said, getting his attention before taking out a notepad. He kept his distance in case this was one of those Nationalist Wutain pricks whose blade was finely sharpened for SOLDIERS especially. "Name and current business?"

The stranger shrugged, taking a drink from the jug, but made no move for his sword. "I was really hoping you might be able to tell me why I'm here."

Martin smelled alcohol from where he stood, so he tried to handle the man like he would any other alcoholic he needed to take into custody. "Alright, pal, just give me your name and we'll get you home in one piece."

There was a long pause, then the man turned and looked at him. "Auron," he replied.

Martin couldn't have been any slower in regaining his motor skills.