Chapter 2

"Don't act so weak, Elena."
"Don't talk weak, Elena."
"You're a Turk, Elena!"
"Toughen yourself up, sweetheart."
"Fuck's sake, Elena, don't act so fucking weak!"

That was all Reno ever said to her. Elena closed her eyes, massaging her temples slightly. God, she missed Tseng. Tseng, who had asked her to a dinner he would never make just before he…no, she wouldn't believe he had died. Couldn't believe it. She had loved Tseng, loved him with all of her heart. Forcing back tears, she swallowed another Diazepam and willed herself to stop thinking, but she couldn't erase Reno's mantra from her head. Maybe she was weak…maybe he was right. But what use was strength with no positive channel for it? She wasn't about to start killing just for the sake of it, for fun, like Reno did. Instead, she strived to be more like Tseng. Yes, he had been ruthless, but in her heart Elena believed that he also had a kind side, a willingness to spare the innocent. In his more vitriolic moments, Reno had told her that Tseng wasn't afraid to lash out at anyone who annoyed him - women included. But she didn't want to believe that, no matter how true it might have been. In Elena's mind, Tseng was almost a sort of martyr. He certainly wasn't like Reno, whose sneering, acerbic arrogance had always irritated her. He was deep, like Rude, and someone to look up to. At the thought of Rude, Elena felt a fleeting sense of guilt. She had been sharp with him today, when he'd probably only been trying to help. Rude reminded her of Tseng, in some aspects. Elena had a great deal of respect for the tall, bald Turk; certainly, more than she held for the lazy, overconfident Reno. Yet, still she yearned to be part of their group. She knew that they had been a team for five years before she was ever on the scene, but surely they could both make an effort to include their newest colleague? Reno and Rude went out drinking after work almost every night, but they never invited her, and Elena couldn't understand why. When Tseng had still been around, he would often invite her to go with them, although he himself didn't spend too much time with his contemporaries after work ended. Another thing that bothered Elena was the fact that Reno would look every pretty woman who passed him up and down and then discuss it with Rude, but he had never done that to her. Mostly, she was thankful for this – Reno had a tendency to think of women as pieces of meat – but still, she wondered if Reno didn't consider her good enough to make a move on.

Without really caring, Elena glanced at the clock. It had just turned eleven, and Reno and Rude would still be in their regular bar, making jokes with the barman and intimidating the other customers into buying them drinks. She sighed, irritated with how long the Diazepam was taking to work. All she wanted to do was sleep, especially since she had to deal with Heidegger in the morning, and he didn't seem best pleased. She had rewritten the offending report as soon as she'd fled home from the office, ensuring every particle was correct, but she did it with no real commitment. Long gone were the days of the eager rookie, she had decided. Now she was going to be herself, no matter who it pissed off. These were nice thoughts for now, but Elena knew that tomorrow, she would once again put on the eager rookie's veneer. She would call Reno sir, Rude too. She would pretend to be emotionally detached from her work, as Reno and Rude were. She would suffer Reno's criticisms without fighting back, and she wouldn't complain when the office was enveloped in a fog of cigarette smoke. She was jolted out of her downward trajectory, however, by the door buzzer sounding. Dragging herself up from the sofa, she made her way over to the intercom.
"Yes?"
"Elena?" a familiar voice crackled through the speaker. "It's Rude. Can I come up?"
"…What do you want?" Elena replied, not feeling as irritable as she sounded.
"I just want to talk. Please?"
Elena sighed, but pressed the button to release the door lock anyway. "Okay. Come up."

Presently, there was a knock on the door, and Rude let himself in. He smelled of smoke and liquor, but didn't seem drunk.
"What's so important it distracted you from getting sloshed with Mr Important?" she asked, one eyebrow raised.
"I feel really bad about earlier, Elena," Rude began. "Reno was out of line, I'm sorry."
"It's not you who needs to apologise, Rude," Elena replied huffily. "Although I don't much enjoy being accused of drug-taking."
Rude's eyes strayed over to the small coffee table, where there lay an assortment of medicine bottles. He said nothing, and Elena cringed when she followed his gaze. "I can explain."
"Please do," he said. "I'm worried about you. Let's sit down."
They sat at opposite ends of the sofa, although Rude's build took up about half of the cushions. "I can't sleep." Elena said simply.
"I don't believe you, Elena…" Rude said quietly. "You're always taking headache pills. You're going to hurt yourself."
"How could you understand!" Elena said, more venomously than she had meant to. "You're part of the gang. No one leaves you out. People care about you. I don't have anyone since Tseng…since he…"
Rude blinked behind his shades. "That's why you're upset? Because we don't bring you with us every time we go out? Elena, Reno and I didn't think you'd be interested in getting drunk every night and chatting up women."
"Well, I'm not. Not really." Elena admitted. "But it would be nice to be considered for once! Honestly, you guys never think about me at all."
"Reno's worried about you too, you know." Rude stated. "That's why he got so angry. It's his way of showing he cares."
"Reno doesn't care about anything but himself and getting his fixes." Elena retorted angrily. "You know for a fact he'd slit both our throats for a kilo of coke."
"That's not true!" Rude sounded angry. "You don't know him well enough, that's all. Reno cares more than you know."
"He's always making fun of me!" Elena snapped, folding her arms.
"That's because he likes you." Rude said. "If Reno doesn't like someone, he just plain ignores them. He makes fun of you because he doesn't believe in being too nice."
"Even being a little nice would be good…" Elena almost whispered. "All I hear is how weak I am."
"Think about it, Elena," Rude said, a little more softly this time. "If you really were weak, you wouldn't be a Turk. Reno knows that only too well. Everyone knows it."
"Well, sometimes I feel weak. All I want to do these days is sleep." Elena confessed. "The Diazepam just makes me feel better."
"You don't need them." Rude said firmly. "You're just as good without them. Even better, in fact."
Elena was silent for a moment, a ghost of a smile forming at the edges of her lips. "Never thought I'd hear you talk like this, Rude. I was sure you thought words were just a waste of time."
"I…" Rude seemed stuck. "I had to say it, Elena, because you're going to do yourself some serious damage if you don't stop going on like you are."
She smiled sleepily, all of a sudden noticing the Diazepam taking effect. "Nice…to know someone cares…"

When she awoke the next morning, Elena found all of her tablets gone, and a note on the coffee table reading simply 'Be strong.' in Rude's handwriting. She smiled faintly to herself, making a resolution then and there to quit being the rookie and start standing up for herself. After all, Rude hadn't said anything about not taking aspirin anymore…