Disclaimer: I do not make any legal claim to any character or setting described within this or any fanwork I create. These are the property of SquareEnix.

Age 24: Healing Lodge

"Hold on Mr. President! We've got you!"

"Elena! Get the hell outta the way!"

"But Reno?"

"NOW!"

In the middle of the hallway of the Healing Lodge, the youngest of the Turks came to a halt and stood there watching as Reno continued to jog alongside the doctors. She knew she shouldn't feel that way, but hearing Reno yell at her like that as they wheeled Rufus on the gurney into the operating room struck a painful chord in her, and for the first time since news of Tseng's death Elena felt like breaking down into tears.

"Don't let him get to you," a calm, stoic voice said behind her a moment before she felt the strong grip on her shoulder. "Reno's just scared for Rufus and guilty that we didn't go along with you in the first place. You did good today."

Elena tilted her head up to look at Rude before nodding silently. Meteor had been about to fall and though they knew that Avalanche was fighting Sephiroth in the Northern Crater, the three of them agreed that Midgar was a lost cause. By that time, it hadn't been a case of "if" the mighty city would crumble beneath the destructive force from the heavens as much as "when".

However, despite agreeing that evacuating the city was the necessary, Elena wouldn't leave... at least not immediately.

"You're insane! What the hell do you think you're going to find out there? Diamond Weapon completely destroyed the upper floors of HQ! There's no chance that anyone survived, especially not him!"

"I'm not going to find survivors, Reno. I'm going to find him."

"You idiot! Rufus is dead and the rest of the city is going that way within a day or two. Why are you going back there to risk your life to bring back a corpse!"

"Because when Tseng died, we promised to take care of Rufus, and just because we failed to save his life doesn't mean we're finished taking care of him. I left Tseng behind at the Temple! I should've stayed or gone back to bring him out before it collapsed! Because I left him behind, we didn't even have his body to bury properly! I won't let Rufus go the same way!"

Elena hadn't been certain, too caught up in her own emotions to really pay attention, but looking back, she could've sworn that she saw Reno nearly break down right there in frontn of her before he stiffened up and told her to go ahead and get herself killed for the dead if that's what she wanted. Rude at least wished her good luck, but he wouldn't go with her either, wanting to stay behind and make sure that his partner didn't do anything stupid in her absence. Rufus's death seemed to be hitting Reno hardest of all of them, and something about the way Rude apologized afterwards for the redhead tearing into her that day before the pair left for Junon made her think that perhaps there was more between Reno and Rufus than she originally knew about.

All those thoughts went out the window, though, when she found Rufus alive in the remains of the twisted penthouse office of Shinra HQ. He was close to death, to be sure. There would have been no way the young could survive another day in the state he was in, with his injuries and loss of blood.

However he was not dead yet.

The Turk had been shocked, but not so much so that she didn't move to immediate action. She'd called Reno and Rude and told them to get the hell back to the city. Afterwards she had forced her herself to the point of exhaustion casting multiple high level Cure spells to stablize Rufus enough to start carefully moving him from the remains of his office to what was left of the roof. It had been a very tense time waiting for Rude and Reno to appear, but eventually they picked the two of them up with a helicopter they'd borrowed from the military base.

And now here they all were at the Healing Lodge. There was still no guarantee that Rufus would even survive the evening, but at least he had a better chance here than in the city that was currently marked for death.

"Elena," Rude's voice shook the girl out of her reverie. She hadn't noticed she'd spaced out and blinked up with a confused expression. "You're exhausted. Go find an empty room and get some sleep."

Though she wanted to stay with Rude just in case they got some news about Rufus's condition, Elena nodded numbly and turned to look for an empty room. She was so tired and the adrenaline rush that had been keeping her on her feet since Midgar was completely depleted.

As she rounded a corner, following a nurse's suggestion that there were some empty rooms in the long term recovery wing, the young woman stopped and rubbed her eyes in confusion. She could've sworn she just saw Reeve, of all people, coming out of one of the rooms while talking with a doctor. Confusion gave way to curiosity when the doctor moved out of her line of sight and she could clearly see that yes, it was the former head of Urban Development.

"Reeve?" Elena said warily as she approached the two men. At the sound of her voice, the man in question froze and gave her a startled expression. By now it was known that Reeve had ultimately chosen Avalanche over Shinra, and he had very good reason to be nervous about a Turk facing him down.

"Why... Elena! What a pleasant surprise," the man said nervously as he took a reflexive step back from the approaching woman. "What are you doing here? Did Reno or Rude get injured in their last fight with Avalanche?"

"No," the girl started, stopping just a couple feet away from him. "We found Rufus alive in Midgar and brought him here for treatment." Then she fixed Reeve with a suspicious look. "But what are you doing here? This is a hospital for Turks and Soldiers."

"Why didn't you know, young lady?" the doctor chimed in, much to Reeve's chagrin. He wanted to tell the doctor to stop, but a hard glare from Elena shut him up before he could even say a word.

"Know what?"

The doctor looked curiously from her to Reeve and back again. "Why... that your commanding officer's being treated here, of course." he said. "Mr. Tuesti brought him in a while ago with a very bad sword injury. Things were touch and go for awhile there, but now he's stablized and--"

Anything more the doctor had to say was completely forgotten as he was shoved out of the way by the small blonde woman who rushed foward to snag the lapels of Reeve's jacket and slam his back into the nearest wall.

"Tseng's alive!" Elena's voice held various tones of disbelief, anger, and relief. Though tears unshed whelled up in her eyes, she stared down Reeve as she tightened her grip on his jacket, not giving him any room for escape, not even from her piercing, accusatory gaze. "You told us he was dead, and all this time he's been alive!" The man opened his mouth to say something, but in her frustration and with her patience already worn threadbare by the events of the day, Elena pulled Reeve just far enough from the wall to slam him hard back into it, relishing the sound of his head cracking against it. "Why didn't you tell us the truth! Why did you lie to us!"

Reeve swallowed hard as stars danced in his eyes. Sure Elena was the smallest and seemed to be the least threatening of the Turks, at least in theory, but now he was forced to reassess that assumption. "I couldn't let Cait leave Tseng to die alone there at the temple, but I... I thought... keeping Tseng away from the Turks afterwards... would... would..."

"Would what!"

Reeve knew this would be painful. "...would help hasten Shinra's fall," he muttered in a whispered tone. He closed his eyes to the shocked, deadly serious glare Elena was now staring at him with. "I knew without Tseng's support, without his guidance, Rufus would not be able to handle the company. That maybe if he was allowed to fail it would be easier to work the company free from his grasp... for the Planet's sake, and the sake of the people of Midgar... I just never knew Rufus would take things as far as he--"

Elena didn't give Reeve a chance to finish explaining. The next thing the man knew, he was being kneed in the gut. As he collapsed to the ground, curled up in near blinding pain, he barely registered the words the girl was screaming at him.

"You bastard! All this time we thought he was dead and he was alive! Do you have any idea what this could have done for us? For him? For the company? For Midgar!" The girl was completely beside herself with fury, tears finally falling from her eyes. Though she was listing every other reason under the sun for the direction of her anger, within her heart Elena there was a part of herself that was aching because of how Tseng's supposed death affected her.

"Tseng could've stopped him. He could've reasoned with Rufus, made him see what he was doing was wrong." Elena shook her head. "He could've done something... anything... more than we could ever do alone..." With a grimace, the girl glared at Reeve again and gave him one final savage kick to the ribs. "You'd better not be here when I come back out, cause when I tell Reno and Rude what you've done, you can be sure they're not going to go easy on you like me."

Without another word, Elena then left Reeve and the good doctor and stepped into the room behind them.

Though the drugs the doctor had him on were pretty powerful and kept him blissfully unaware of anything happening outside his own mind most days, including the lingering pain from the wound he received from Sephiroth, Tseng eventually woke up to an unfamiliar sensation nagging at the edges of his consciousness. Blearily, he glanced around himself, taking a moment to reassure himself of his surroundings before looking for the source of what had woken him up. When he found it, however, he paused and stared in surprise.

Her head resting on the matress next to his arm, Elena was soundly sleeping seated on the floor beside Tseng's bed. The man stared for a long moment at how the girl's delicate hand was curled lightly around his own, as if he were having a hard time comprehending how it got there in the first place. Then he let his eyes roam over the rest of the girl. Her jacket was missing, and it was clear from her general appearance that it looked like she'd gone through hell and back. Her normally well-kept hair was disheveled and her face, smudged with dust and light traces of grime, had tear tracks cutting clean paths down her cheeks.

Tseng was extremely confused and concerned as to Elena's state. Though he hadn't been lucid enough in recent days to understand everything going on in the world outside the Healing Lodge, Reeve had been assuring him that all was well on his recent visits. As Elena took a small, shuddering breath and grimaced slightly in her sleep, still suffering after effects of crying herself to sleep, Tseng felt his heart clench a little. Gingerly, he worked his hand out of the girl's loose grasp and shifted his hand so that he could gently stroke the soft blond hair. The gesture certainly wasn't enough to wake her, but it did bring a measure of visible comfort to the youngest of his Turks as he watched the tension in her weary face relax under his touch.