Reeve sat back in the cool leather chair in the air conditioned office. He frowned, considering the offer that was being put to him.
"The Turks?" he said.
The other man nodded. "I umm..." He hesitated as he leafed through a file on his desk. "I have some information on the ones that were alive, at the end of...of the situation."
Reeve was more than slightly annoyed at the other's polite business-like coolness, and tried to match it with his own. "The Turks have disbanded," he said. "I'm afraid I wouldn't even know where to find any of them."
The small, ferret-like businessman looked up at him, pretending to try to hide an amused smile. "Hmm," he said again, peevishly, "yes. You're telling me you would not be able to locate them," he said, clearly stating with his tone that there was no way in hell he believed him. "Anyway," he went on, "I have some information on them, just vague background information. If you're interested in taking this job I'll need a little more."
Reeve hesitated, matching the other man's go-to-hell smile with his own. It wasn't a challenge for him to do that; he was practiced at being the chilly business person, even though he never quite believed it reflected what was inside of him.
"It's an opportunity for all of you, Reeve," the other man said. "With the ShinRa gone... Let me just say that it would pay for all of you to be involved in this. Don't tell me you don't need the gil for Midgar."
Reeve remained silent.
"I know that the Turks are a force all their own, and not to be taken lightly. I know they're dangerous. But it is our opinion that the world could be a much safer place if the Turks were to regroup under different circumstances."
Reeve was annoyed at the way Bradburn had used the term "our opinion," and wondered if he meant the entire group he represented, or the royal "We." He suppressed a small smile.
"Who's 'we', if you don't mind my asking you, Bradburn?" he asked.
"The party I represent and...and, well, myself, in fact. You know as well as I do that law enforcement is in severe decline."
"Law enforcement?" Reeve asked, both astonished and exasperated. "Mr. Bradburn, you misunderstand the Turks."
"Perhaps I do. That's part of why I'm asking you to tell me more. You don't have to tell me anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, or anything that you feel might betray their trust."
"You're damned right I don't," Reeve said, making sure that he sounded more confident and amused than as annoyed as he was.
But Bradburn was right about one thing. It would pay, in more ways than one, for the Turks to regroup, though he hated to admit that this man could be right about anything. And also, he had to admit, he had liked the Turks. And it couldn't hurt anything to listen.
Reeve nodded. "Go on," he said. "Ask me your questions. And then I'll have some to ask you."
A sly smile creased Bradburn's thin lips. "Good," he said. "To get started, I'll need a little more background information. We want to know we're not hiring savages."
Reeve thought of Reno and had to stifle a chuckle. "You're not hiring anyone yet, that I know of."
"I understand that, Reeve. Forgive me if I seem a little eager." Bradburn fastidiously leafed through his file once more. "Elena," he said, and looked at Reeve.
Reeve pressed his fingertips together in a way that he hoped would annoy the other man. It wouldn't hurt to tell this man anything that was already in the files he had, and he wondered what this little charade was about. He shrugged. After all, the decision wouldn't be his; all he had to do was find the Turks and bring them a message. He realized that he wouldn't mind finding the Turks. He wouldn't mind it at all. He often wondered what had become of them.
"She was their latest acquisition," Reeve said. "She had what it took to be a Turk, but she would have benefited from more time with them. She needed some strengthening."
Bradburn smiled and nodded, in such a way that it seemed he was saying, "Don't all women?" Reeve had a flash image of little Bradburn being thrown into a volcano by Amazon women, and wondered where it had come from. Maybe a movie he'd seen.
"But she was a stabilizing force, and very powerful," Reeve went on. "Once she got the idea of what it meant to be a Turk, she was incredibly valuable and clearheaded. Passionate," he said, "but reasonable. It was unfortunate that we never got the chance to see her develop into what she could be."
Bradburn smiled again. "You may very well get that chance," he said, trying to sound warm. "And what about Rude?" he went on.
"Rude was...dispassionate, I would say. A calculating person. Very little in the way of an interesting past, that we're aware of. He was just good at what he did. He was invaluable too, as a stabilizing factor for..." Reeve paused, considering what he was about to say. "Mr. Bradburn," he went on, leaning forward, "working with the Turks is like holding a lit stick of dynamite and waiting for someone to pinch the fuse. You need to understand this before we go on. They're highly skilled and they're dedicated, but they're unpredictable. They're not mindless slaves. They can change their minds and their loyalties unexpectedly."
Bradburn only nodded as if he wasn't really concerned.
Reeve shrugged. Not his problem anymore. He had warned them. "Rude was a stabilizing factor," he went on. "As close to a regular guy as you could hope to get in this line of work. Very quiet. He worked well with Reno."
Bradburn looked up. "Reno," he said simply, waiting for Reeve to go on.
Reeve smiled ever so slightly. "Slightly warped," he said, looking into Bradburn's eyes to let him know he wasn't joking. "Well, in truth, pathologically so. But effective. He started out in SOLDIER and turned out to be possibly the deadliest of all the Turks. He had a lot of anger and ShinRa was willing to exploit that. The training to become a Turk is brutal. Part of it is learning to survive and fight without weapons or materia. Reno was..." He sat back in the chair, holding Bradburn's eyes with his own. He wanted this man to know what his people were getting into. "Reno was not afraid to show his teeth. And to use them," Reeve said mildly, with a smile that told Bradburn he meant what he'd said literally. "He's not afraid to get his hands dirty. None of them are.
"And nothing," Reeve went on, "scares the Turks."
Well, he added mentally, almost nothing.
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Two days after the Turks had unknowingly been sought out by a group simply calling themselves "Hunters," Elena of the Turks was nimbly stepping out onto the narrow tree branch. "I see her!" she called down to Rude. "I think I can grab her!"
"Be careful up there," Rude said, squinting through his sunglasses even in the dusky light.
"I'm fine...just one more...Wooo!" Elena grabbed a nearby branch and steadied herself as she tottered. Fine work for a Turk to be doing, she thought.
"You got her?" Rude called up.
Elena reached out toward the roof of the Tavern and Inn and grabbed the cat by the scruff of the neck. The cat struggled and scratched her. Elena ignored it. "Got her!" she called, as she wondered how she was going to get down. She held the cat away from her body and eased herself down the branches, using her free hand for support. When she was low enough, she handed the creature to Rude, who handed it to the Tavern owner.
"Thank you so much!" the woman squealed as she cuddled the still struggling animal. "Please come in, drinks are on me!"
"Don't have to tell me twice," Rude said, as he held out his hand to Elena, helping her off the last branch.
Inside the tavern, Rude and Elena sat in the corner, quietly nursing their drinks.
"So," said Rude, which surprised Elena, since he was never one to initiate conversation.
"Yeah," she said, with a slight smile. "Weird, huh?"
"Yeah," Rude agreed.
There was another silence, but it was not awkward. Rather, it was accepted and comfortable.
"It's strange," Elena mused once more.
Rude nodded.
"But I'm glad we met up," she said.
As it was, she was exceedingly glad that she had met up with Rude at Costa Del Sol. She had been alone for a long time, hiding her identity, trying to find work that didn't feel degrading to her. But after having been a Turk, it was difficult to find that. She was highly trained at so many different things that it was more than she could stand to do office work or hire herself out as a detective. No one had understood that. And she hadn't made a single friend or comrade the whole time. Rude might have been quiet, but he understood her. He understood her position in life.
"What have you been doing, Rude?" she asked softly, hoping the question wasn't as painful for him as it was for her.
"This and that," he said. "Locating people, things... Taking care of other people's problems. Gotta survive, right? That's what Turks do."
"Yeah," Elena said in a low voice. Turks survived. Most of them, anyway. "So," she said, too quickly and brightly, "heard anything about Reno?"
"Nope."
"Well..." Another silence. "Well, Reno will have thought of something to do with himself. He could never keep still for too long."
Rude gave her a rare smile. Reno had been his best friend and ally. "Yeah," he said, and raised his glass. "To the Turks. To Reno!"
Elena clinked her glass against his. "To the Turks! To..." She stopped as she glanced at the door to the Tavern, which had been thrown open with a flourish. "RENO!"
Rude nodded and began to take a long drink from his glass.
"No, Rude!" Elena said, pulling the glass away from his face and making him sputter.
"Damn, Elena! What..."
Elena was pointing frantically to the door. Rude slowly turned to look where she was pointing.
There was no missing the tall, lanky frame, topped with dark copper hair, standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the dying sunlight. Rude stood up quickly, nearly knocking the table over.
Elena got up too, and followed Rude towards the door. She was shocked to see Reno, but she was more shocked by his appearance when they approached him. Physically he looked just as he always had, maybe a little thinner, but there was something drastically different about him. He looked overwhelmingly relieved to see them, especially Rude, and he smiled tremulously. Elena noticed both of those things immediately. Reno never looked overwhelmingly anything, and he never did anything tremulously.
If Rude noticed at all, he didn't show it. He merely peered over the top of his sunglasses with a small smile. "Reno of the Turks," he stated.
Reno's smile broadened. "I saw you guys come in," he said quietly.
Elena frowned. Reno never said anything quietly.
There was another small silence before Rude said, "Welcome back, man," and hugged Reno, clapping him on the back.
"Good to see you guys," Reno said, turning next to Elena.
As she put her arms around him, Elena was startled to find that he also felt different. He'd always been thin, but there was something about him... She pushed the word "frail" out of her mind and stepped back to look him over.
"What?" Reno asked, still smiling in that tremulous way that put Elena on edge.
"You seem different," she said, trying to keep her tone light. "Just making sure you're you."
"Aw, Reno's just Reno, that's all," Rude said, and took hold of the other man's chin. "See?" he said, roughly turning his face so that Elena could see the scars that ran across both sides of his face.
Elena smiled at him. "Yeah."
"Another round of drinks!" Rude said.
Reno cringed. "Shh. Let's go sit down."
"I'll join you in a sec," Elena said. "I have to go to the ladies'."
"Take a nice long piss for me," Rude said, as he and Reno went back to the table in the corner where he and Elena had been sitting.
Elena went towards the hall where the restrooms were located, then sidestepped behind a booth in the tavern where she could watch Reno and Rude. She had a sense of something wrong, and she'd learned over the years to trust this small voice of intuition. She also knew that Reno would be more likely to spill whatever truth he was hiding to Rude, and Rude alone. This, she decided, might hurt her feelings later, but for now she was just interested in watching him and listening. The Mako had enhanced her hearing, and all the Turks had been trained to single out specific voices in a crowd of voices, or, if that wasn't possible, to read lips. Elena now did a little bit of both.
Reno sat in the darkest corner and slunk down in the chair, his long legs crossed under the table. He glanced around the room nervously, though he tried to look relaxed. That was also worrying, because Reno excelled at what he called "acting casual" during crises.
"God, it's been forever," Reno said to Rude. "I thought about you guys a lot."
"Well?" Rude said sternly.
So, Elena thought, Rude did see it, too. He was hiding it from me. This might also make her feel lonely, but later. Not while she was working.
Reno looked at him, startled. "Well what?"
"Elena's right, you look wasted. What happened?" he asked. He took a drink as he waited for the reply.
Reno looked away and shrugged carelessly. "Dunno. I guess just bored, lack of good work..."
Rude put his glass down on the table hard enough to make Reno jump. "Bullshit," he said. "You jumped outta your skin just now. Since when do you do that?"
"I don't wanna say it in front of Elena. I don't want to get her involved," he said softly.
Elena couldn't hold back anymore; she came from behind the booth and strode back to the table purposefully. "Get me involved in what, you overbearing, chauvinistic bastard?" Elena said.
Reno didn't seem to care that she'd heard him. "Sorry, Elena. I didn't want to get either of you involved, but...I can't do it alone."
Elena grabbed a handful of Reno's hair and yanked hard enough so that he was looking up at her as she stood behind him. "You either do it alone, or you do it as a Turk, Reno, you son of a bitch. All or nothing." She hated that it must have looked to him as if she had something to prove. But, damnit, she did.
Reno smiled, still looking up at her as she held his hair. "I'm not the only one who's changed, huh?" he whispered.
"No," Elena said.
Rude had stopped drinking in mid-gulp and stared at Elena, looking mildly surprised.
"We didn't all end up in Costa Del Sol for goddamn nothing," Elena said.
"Nope," Reno conceded. "We didn't. I knew Rude liked it here; he always talked about coming here. I knew that this was where I'd find him."
Elena slowly let go of Reno's hair, trying to cover up the hurt she felt at his words. He always had a way of making her feel left out, as if she was never really a Turk just because she was the last recruit. He'd always thought of her as a rookie. He had just told her as much once again. He hadn't been looking for her at all. He was looking for Rude, and Elena could have been selling her body at Wall Market for all he cared. She wondered if, after all these years, he still resented her for having replaced him after Midgar.
"Elena's right," Rude said, and resumed drinking. When he was done he sat back and wiped his lips on his sleeve. "Safety in numbers. Especially highly trained numbers. So if you got a problem, Reno, we oughtta work together."
Reno looked them both over, a challenge in his eyes. "Fine," he said shortly, leaving the words "you asked for it," unspoken. "Yeah, I got a goddamn problem. A huge bastard of a problem." He gestured toward the door. Elena saw that his hands were shaking. "A huge bastard of a problem that could break my goddamn neck with his little finger or just as easily break the Planet with his little finger, and he's goddamn stalking around somewhere right now wearing a black cape and looking for his goddamn 20 foot sword." Reno took a deep breath. He leaned forward and tiredly rested his forehead on his folded arms. "You still wanna help me?"
Elena gaped at him; she couldn't help it. Well, a small voice that she recognized as her own inner snark whispered to her, you did ask, you know.
