Author's Notes: One huge thank you goes out to Heather Cat. Thanks for being a sounding board and for listening to numerous long-winded rants. Thanks especially for 'Do You Like It' by Our Lady Peace because without it this chapter and the subsequent ones would've been far more difficult to write.
An Apology: I think I agree with Neil Gaiman. To paraphrase: events are cowards and don't occur singly but instead leap out at people all at once. (Neverwhere) Unfortunately, I was sort of out of the country for a while and so was unable to post. After returning to Canada, I ended up spending a few terrible long nights trying frantically to catch up on the days I had missed. Thankfully, everything is back to normal now.
A Note: When I started writing this story, my summary for it was "You can give without loving but you cannot love without giving." by Amy Carmichael. I changed it when I realized that that was a little too vague to serve as a summary but the idea is still at the heart of my story.

Salvation (9)

Elena was sitting on the surgical bed in Detox with her head was nodding forward. It was somewhere past two in the morning and she had never felt so exhausted.
The doctor in front of her was chatting away as he examined the deep gash in her hand. Elena had his personality pegged: he was the kind of man who blathered on when he was nervous. She closed her eyes wearily and wondered vaguely how he could be nervous around her. After all, she was exhausted and she highly doubted that she do much more than yawn on any opponent that chose to attack her. Elena was almost tempted to tell the doctor to shut the Hell up but then decided that that would require far too much energy.
The man had already seen Tseng, Reno, and Rude. Of the three of them, Tseng had only been the one who had been seriously hurt. He had been sequestered away in Detox for nearly an hour. Afterwards, he had been transferred to the Shin-ra wing at the civilian hospital for monitoring overnight.
Reno and Rude hadn't really been hurt too badly. Both of them had suffered a few minor lacerations, bruises, and burns but nothing too major. Now, it was Elena's turn. Her only major concern was the wound in her hand. It was a disgusting thing to look at. The cut itself was an inch wide and stretched the entire length of her palm. She could hardly move her hand without it protesting. Worse, it wasn't a clean cut by any means. The skin around the wound was jagged and swollen and there were fibres from the rope embedded in it. The parts of her hand that weren't cut were covered with blisters. It was a disgusting mess.
The doctor examined her hand, chatting all the while.
"My god, that is quite the sight, isn't it? Well, let's see, let's see. You'll certainly need some materia healing, of course. There's not really enough skin left to stitch. Hmm, it might be possible though. Cuts on the palm are such nasty things. They can take such a long time to heal because they're always being reopened. Hmm, hmm. Hard to say, hard to say. You could certainly use some antibiotics, of course. Nasty thing to get infected. Have to take out those threads there first though. That'll smart. Well, not much help there..."
Elena thought bleakly that any treatment the man could offer her would probably be less painful that his continual chatter and so she didn't comment.

Twenty minutes later, she was out of Detox and escorting the doctor off of the Turks floor. He fidgeted the entire time until the elevator doors closed and he was free from her presence. Elena shook her head bemusedly.
"I say you should've shot the bastard."
Elena grinned and turned around to face Reno. He was sitting down in front of his office, with his head resting against the closed door. She hadn't realized that he was still in the building.
"I'm off duty, remember?" she asked, grinning at Reno tiredly. He smirked.
"I think we could've made an exception," he said and they both laughed quietly.
"Rude's gone?" Elena asked.
"Yeah," Reno answered. He eyed Elena up and down, taking in the weary slump of her shoulders.
"Hey, 'Lena," Reno asked, getting up from his resting spot. "Do you want a ride home?"
Elena was about to refuse his offer but then changed her mind. She didn't really feel like taking the train home.
"Sure Reno. That'd be great."

Reno always drove impossibly fast. Now that they were practically the only car on the road, he drove even faster. If Elena hadn't been so close to falling asleep in her seat, she probably would've been horrified. Instead, she watched the various buildings around her fly by and blur into one tangled mess.
It took much less time than she would've expected for them to reach her apartment complex. Despite the incredible speed at which he had been driving, Reno still somehow managed to pull up outside Elena's building without jolting her completely out of her seat. He's good, Elena thought to herself. Not that she'd ever admit that to him, of course.
"Thanks Reno. G'night." Elena said as she unbuckled her seatbelt. She was about to get out of the car but Reno spoke up and she paused.
"'Lena..." Elena looked back at Reno. Surprisingly, his eyes darted away from her. When he looked back at her though, he was smiling.
"Sleep 'tight 'Lena."
She smiled.
"You too Reno."
She closed the door to his car and wave as he pulled away. Walking back to her apartment, Elena couldn't quite shake the feeling that that hadn't been exactly what Reno had wanted to say to her though.

Reno found himself driving to the edge of the city. There really was nobody else out on the road. Earlier, he had stopped off at a liquor store to pick up a six-pack. In Midgar, there was always a place open if you knew where to look. Truth be told, Reno just didn't want to go home yet.
It wasn't long before Reno found that he had reached the very edge of the city limits. Here, the highway literally dropped off into nothing. It had never been completed. From here, you could look out in front of you and for once there wasn't the sprawling mass of the city to obstruct your view. It wasn't as impossible to imagine that just under sixty miles from Midgar the ocean was waiting. It was as good a place as any.
Reno put his car in park and grabbed his keys from the ignition. He leaned over and picked up his six-pack from the passenger seat and headed out to the very tip of the highway. There, he sat down and let his legs dangle over the side. There was something about sitting on the edge of the city that was oddly thrilling.
He snapped open one of his beers and contemplated the scene before him. Even here, you couldn't see the stars but at least Midgar's lights were a little more muted. It was easier to imagine the stars, Reno thought.
Drinking quietly, Reno wondered how long it would take for the morning to come.

Elena woke up feeling like she had hardly slept more than a moment. Her head felt too large and her eyes felt gummy. When she sat up, her stomach lurched in protest.
God, she thought to herself bleakly. Naturally, this was the opportune moment for Tom to pounce on her cruelly and attack her with a furious attack of cheerful meowing.
"Ah Tom!" she exclaimed as her cat suddenly decided to turn her lap into a bed. Elena laughed a little at his antics and scratched him behind the ears to Tom's unending delight. He started up a lively purr to show his appreciation.
"You are such a big suck," Elena said affectionately.
Running a hand over her eyes, Elena looked at the clock on her beside table. It was a little past six in the morning. She groaned because it was earlier than she usually cared to wake up but now that she was fully awake, she knew that there was no hope of her falling back to sleep again.
Elena shifted her position and Tom meowed in protest.
"I've got to wake up sometime Tom," she chided him quietly.
Elena kicked off her blankets and moved around her room, stretching. She groaned again when she felt the stiff ache in her back and shoulders tighten. Materia healing not withstanding, she imagined she'd be feeling those for a while. Elena paused a little, suddenly remembering how she had hurt her shoulders. Automatically, she winced and stopped thinking about last night. If there was something that she didn't want to remember, it was Tseng's limp body plummeting down towards the ground unchecked.
Elena unclenched her fists and looked at the long scar that crossed her palm. She knew the ache she felt in it was just a phantom pain. There was nothing left of the nasty wound on her hand except the scar. The cut was healed and the muscles beneath it surely were as well. Still, looking at her palm, she could remember the burning feeling of the rope cutting into her and the sharp jolt that had flown through her when she had suddenly had to cope with Tseng's mass as well.
Elena opened and closed her hand experimentally. There was nothing. She could move it perfectly fine now. After all, a Turk needed her hands most of all. The doctor had been very careful to heal the wound completely.
Elena ran a hand through her sleep-ruffled hair and looked around the room again. It was then that she noticed her PHS lying beside her clock. No matter how tired she had been last night, she had remembered to take out her PHS and lay it close to her bed. A Turk never went anywhere without a phone; they were always on call.
A small light was flashing on the outer cover of the phone. Someone had left her a message last night. Or this morning, Elena supposed, considering that she had only gotten home closer to three... last night? This morning? She hated staying up late because it always screwed up her internal clock.
She picked up the small phone and keyed in her code to access her messages. Elena put the PHS close to her ear and listened to the message.
"Hey 'Lena," Reno's voice said. "Listen: don't bother coming in to work today. I spoke with Heidegger this morning because Tseng hasn't been discharged from the hospital yet. He was satisfied with my debriefing and granted us the day off!"
Elena could almost picture Reno's smug grin at that line.
"Anyways, don't even think about coming in to work today! And that's an order!"
Oh yes, he was definitely smiling.
"No reports, no nothing 'Lena, all right?"
There was a long pause on the line before Reno continued.
"Also, I thought you might like to know... Tseng's gonna be fine 'Lena. He should be out sometime later today..."
Another long pause.
"You did a Hell of a job last night 'Lena... Enjoy your day off, k? Bye."
The line went dead and a mechanical voice asked Elena if she wanted to replay the message. She closed her PHS and the machine went back into standby. Elena cradled the phone for a moment, thinking. Tseng was going to be... She drew in a breath she hadn't realized that she'd been holding. Tseng was going to be fine.
There was that peeking memory again: Tseng dangling below her, the rope cutting into her palm. Resolutely, Elena forced it down. Tseng was going to be fine. They had accomplished their mission. Harraway was dead and his entire organization was utterly destroyed. Some other weapons dealer would move in and claim what was left of his assets. Life would go on in Midgar.
Elena shuddered and she didn't know why. Tom meowed at her concernedly.
"I'm fine Tom." Elena said absently.
Running another hand through her hair, she wandered into her kitchen. She paused when she looked at her kitchen table. Her black shoulder bag was hanging on a chair. There were a few neat stacks of paper on the table and Tseng's little black book was sitting self-purposefully on one of them. Almost hesitantly, Elena walked forward and picked up the book. When she touched it, it seemed to her that she was back in Harraway's compound with Tseng. She could see him, leaning forward weakly, his hand clutching his chest.
Elena ran her fingers across the rough cover of the book. Its texture slithered like a callous across her finger. She didn't care for what she was thinking.
She was thinking about Tseng sitting in Detox with her after her first mission and about him dangling bloody and broken four stories above the ground. She was thinking about the first night they had had together and the frantic need that she was been shocked to feel. She had been so shocked to feel. She was thinking... she was thinking about coming home at two in the morning, about crying herself to sleep, about Reno refusing to ask questions, and about a small, Wutaian woman standing in the background, smiling.
Elena suddenly felt dizzy and sick. This wasn't right. She knew it with the most instinctive part of herself. Whatever this was, it wasn't right. She was tired of clinging to him. Elena pressed her palm against the flat surface of the book, imagining her scarred hand imprinting itself on the cover. She was so tired. She didn't even know who he was. Sometimes, Elena thought that she almost understood him but the moment was always fleeting. Why was she doing this? It was a dirty, dishonest thing. She had stolen something of his to try and understand him. It was a stupid, pathetic thing to have done. And he, he...
There he was, distant and forbidding but oh so intriguing. Just thinking about him, Elena felt her love come dangerously close to overpowering her. Intertwined with that ever-present love was a dark tinge of frustration. She was there too. The woman's image was fuzzy compared to the too-sharp picture of Tseng she carried with her in her heart but Elena could still imagine her smiling at him. Why was she smiling?
Tseng's smiles were always quiet things. They were rare and fleeting but when they shone through it felt like the sun coming up. Elena tried desperately to think of the last time that she had seen him smile, tried to remember if she had ever made him smile, and she couldn't.
Elena felt her heart clench in her chest, realizing that. She couldn't remember. Had he ever smiled at her with that genuine affection that she imagined was so important for reasons couldn't quite grasp? And when his hands were on her, when she lay down with him, was it even her that he saw? Was it?
Elena sobbed quietly but forced that pain down. She tried to tell herself that it didn't matter, that she loved him and so she could be happy like this, but she knew that she was lying to herself. She wasn't happy. And God, she was so tired of lying.
Wearily, Elena pulled out a chair and sat down. She opened to book and flipped through its pages. She could almost read it. Soon, she wouldn't need her translations. Very soon, she'd be able to turn to any page and pick out any part and read it fluently but what did that matter?
It didn't.
It didn't matter because anything she learnt she had stolen from him. Whatever she felt didn't matter and she had been a fool to believe that it did. No, nothing mattered anymore.
Elena closed the book and sat it down on her table. Tonight, she'd give it back. Tonight, she would be free from this, one way or another.

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Responses:

Fantasy4: Thanks a lot for the review Fantasy4! I agree: there definitely should be more Tseng fics (and Turks fics!) and I'm really glad that you are enjoying this one. I'm sure this doesn't count as updating 'soon' though. I'll try and do better next time!

Heather Cat: Oh yes, they can be deadly when they want to be, can't they? Mwahaha. I'm glad that you enjoyed the action chapter. I did it well? Huge grin Excellent! It was my first attempt and so I really appreciate the feedback. You liked the materia stunt? I'm glad. Heh, I had realized that I had sort of written Rude and Reno into a hole and needed to come up with some interesting way to do damage. I'm just glad it didn't come off as too far fetched. Hmm, Tseng was being unprofessional? Perhaps. Personally, I just think it's because he and Elena seemed to get shot at more often. Heh. Well, I don't know if this update can be considered 'quick' but I did try, if only for fear of your pokage. Thanks for the review!
Btw, is it just me, or does Elena seem a teeny bit unhinged in this chapter? O.o Heh heh, um... oops?