Chapter 5: Turkish Hangover Cure

"Urgh..." Elena wakes up with a killer headache, upset stomach, and no idea where she is. The smell of coffee wafts in from the other room, along with some sort of music that seems way too loud and the more faint sound of running water. Feeling a lump under her pillow, she reaches for it, finding a pistol. /Great. That music's way too damned loud./ she thinks.

She focuses a bit on one of the materia orbs in the pistol's grip, and then relaxes as the soothing waves of the esuna spell wash through her body. As her headache fades, her stomach settles, and the more subtle damage done by last night's binge heals, memories from the previous night return, along with snatches of conversation. 'Come on Reno, be a gentleman...' 'Alright, 'Lena. Take the bed. Lemme grab some blankets for the couches first.' /So, this is Reno's bedroom./ Elena opens her no longer bloodshot eyes and sees herself. /Somehow I'm not surprised he has a mirror on his ceiling... With his reputation I'm almost surprised he doesn't have one of those heart-shaped vibrating beds... Hey, are these silk sheets? Ohhh, this is nice.../ Having never been in a bed as comfortable, Elena indulges herself and spends a few minutes simply enjoying the silken embrace of the sheets as the round king-sized waterbed cradles her body. As her hangover fades, the music from the other room ceases to seem obnoxiously loud and becomes faint. Although she doesn't recognize the song, Elena recognizes the music as blues, a style of music from the slums. It sounds familiar, but she can't place the tune. Listening, Elena hears lines about pain, regret, and surviving just to spite the world. Fairly typical slum blues. Like most former slum dwellers, hearing this music causes mixed emotions in Elena. On one hand she feels sorrow from painful memories, but on the other she feels pride at having escaped the slums. Like her fellow Turks, she'd beaten the slums, literally risen above them, and would never have to search through a dumpster for a meal or worry about finding a safe place to sleep again.

Shaking off her morning lethargy, Elena throws the sheets aside and sees that she'd at least been sober enough to change into a large t-shirt instead of sleeping in a wet swimsuit. Looking down, she notices the t-shirt she was wearing had a picture of a large gift tag on the front with the words 'To: Women, From: God' on it. /Must be one of Reno's./ Elena had heard stories of how Reno was responsible for the end of casual fridays at Shin-Ra HQ, but had never before viewed one of the notorious shirts that had triggered so many complaints to the HR department.

Rolling out of bed, Elena glances around the sparsely furnished bedroom. One wall was taken up entirely by curtains and the opposite was halfway filled by a closet. Aside from the bed, the only other furniture was a large dresser with a drawer hanging open and a shelf with a small stereo on it. Stepping over to the drawer she apparently left open the night before, Elena spots shirts laying in it with slogans like 'I Taught Your Girlfriend That Thing You Like', 'Free Midgar Zolom Rides', 'Easy Like Sunday Morning', and worse. Laughing at a particularly obscene shirt and the thought that Reno had actually worn it to the office, she slides the drawer shut and exits the bedroom.

Stepping into the main room Elena sees Reno, eyes closed and wearing a tattered pair of sweats that had been cut down into shorts, smoothly flowing through a martial arts form. Most people who know Reno don't think he takes anything seriously, but Elena knows of three things that he does. Getting the job done professionally, taking care of his team, and having an edge. Reflecting on their conversation from the previous night, Elena realizes that the intense practice she was seeing serves a dual purpose for Reno, keeping his edge sharp and his mind too busy to think about the past.

"Enjoying the show Lena?" Reno teases when he notices Elena standing in the doorway.

"Not as much as you're enjoying showing off," she retorts with a small smile. "Just need to get yourself some tighter shorts and one of those little bowties and you might make a little extra cash when you work out." She glances into the kitchen and is disappointed to see the coffee's barely started.

"Earning tips from the ladies at the gym, huh?" Reno smirks. He really enjoys having a co-worker who actually snipes back when he teases her instead of getting angry or sulky. He'd seen early on that Elena has a mischievous side hidden under the eager to please overachiever she presents to the world. Reno sees glimpses of this side every time they joke around like this. "Heh, I've actually got one of those little bowties."

"What? Why would you have one of those?"

"It's a souvenir from one of my more fun missions," he explains while continuing his form. "A ladies club was suspected of being a front for a smuggling ring and they sent me in undercover to check it out. After a few weeks of having women stuff gil down the front of my thong I found the info to crack the ring and went home with about 10,000 gil in tips."

"Hey, I guess we all know how you'll make a living if the consultant thing doesn't work out," Elena teases, certain that Reno's exaggerating about how many tips he'd earned.

"Heh, yeah I guess if business gets slow I've always got that," Reno laughs. "Hey, they've got the reactors back up. How about checking the news?" He waves towards a Shin-Ra PC terminal mounted on the wall near the other end of the room. As she crosses the room Elena's amused to notice that it's easy to tell who slept on which couch. One has a neatly folded blanket sitting on it and the other has a wadded-up blanket in the floor in front of it. Walking past the bathroom, she can't help but giggle at the sight of Rude with his scalp and face covered in shaving cream.

"What?" he asks, turning.

"That's an interesting look for you," she replies. Finally seeing what Rude looks like without sunglasses, Elena's surprised to see that he has soft baby blue eyes. "Hey, cute eyes. Why'd you keep them covered all the time?"

Reno laughs at this comment. "Kinda hard to be intimidating with cute eyes, 'Lena."

"Appearances are important in this business," Rude states before resuming shaving. As he turns back to the mirror, Elena notices a tattoo on his right arm that stretches from shoulder to elbow, a thin stylized dagger with hawk wings for a cross-guard and a skull with flaming eye sockets for a pommel.

"Hey, how come you two've got the same tattoo?" Elena asks.

"This?" Reno looks down at his old tattoo. "It's our calling card from back in the war. All the top Turk teams had one. Some Solider units did it too. We had packs of cards printed up with our symbol that we'd scatter around after a mission so Wong'd know who hit him."

"Wong?" Elena asks while booting up Reno's PC.

"Did I say Wong? Huh, haven't used that for a while. I guess it's all this reminiscing... Anyways, that's what we called Wutaian troops back during the war."

Elena logs onto the Shin-Ra intranet. "Looks like you were right, Reno. The company's falling apart. Wutai and everything on the western continent's declared their independence after hearing about Rufus's death. Reeve's managed to grab what's left, but his control's shaky."

"If it sounds that bad on the company's site, you can bet it's a hell of a lot worse," Reno pessimistically predicts.

"Yeah, they put a spin on everything," Rude adds as he walks into the room, precisely tying his tie. His sunglasses are back in their accustomed place.

"They've declared martial law in the slums." Elena's interrupted by a ding from the kitchen when the coffee maker finishes. She continues as the trio files into the kitchen, hungry for caffeine. "The riots're over. They claim the evacuation's going great." Silence reigns briefly while the three Turks pour themselves mugs of steaming coffee and enjoy their first sips of the morning. "So, what've you got around here for breakfast, Reno?"

"Well there's this diner around the corner I like to go to, but they've probably evacuated. Real shame, they made the best damned omelets. There's some eggs in the fridge, but I've been out of town over a month so they've probably gone bad." Reno searches through the kitchen cabinets. "I've got a couple boxes of toaster tarts."

Rude checks the freezer. "...found some microwave sausage."

"Heh, real healthy meal there," Elena remarks sarcastically.

"It may not be the most balanced, but it'll taste better than dog food," Reno replies, using the common slang term for Shin-Ra army rations. "I've got a crate of that in back if you wanna eat healthy." he continues with a slight smirk.

Elena jokingly makes a disgusted face. "I'll stick with tasty and unhealthy." Within seconds Reno's microwave hums away. "What's the plan for today, boss?"

"First thing after we all get dressed is to round up some transport. Then we're packing up and heading to Junon. All the command's staff's either locked themselves in the underground bunkers or taken off, so we'll be able to pull rank and get whatever we need there."

"Hey Reno, there's something I've been wondering for a while," Elena says between bites of a toaster tart. "How'd you get these?" she asks while reaching out with a finger and tracing one of the scars on his cheeks.

"I usually don't answer that," Reno says, staring into his mug. "But I'll make an exception for you. They're a couple more souvenirs from the war, from the time I got captured. I told you before that Turks worked in pairs in the war. When one got killed or wounded bad enough they couldn't fight, the leftover got temporarily assigned to another team until their partner healed up or got replaced. Rude was on medical leave healing up from a katana through the gut, so they put me in charge of a pair of rookies fresh outa training. I forget their real names, but I called them Stubby and Bubba. You know how I am about trying to stick everyone with nicknames. Stubby was a real short guy, and Bubba was from out in the country around the Mythril Mines. Their first mission was to take out a major bridge near the center of Wutai, cutting the biggest supply line to their front. Not the type of mission they'd normally send rookies on, but they had me along and I coulda done as well solo, maybe better." Reno pauses his story for a sip of coffee.

"Now I'm not saying that to be arrogant or anything, I was officially one of the best we had. See, the company ranked the various Turk teams on efficiency and effectiveness to help make decisions like who gets issued the most expensive equipment, assigned the toughest missions, stuff like that. The team with two old Turks from before the war had the top spot locked in for the whole war, but me 'n Rude's team were in the top three for nearly the entire war." A sad smile crosses Reno's face. "So was Angel's team. Me and her had a bit of a contest going. Whenever we could get together, whoever was rated lower would... well do favors for the other. The type of favors that're as much fun to give as to get, if you catch my drift. Whatever the winner wanted. Heh, I never could decide if it was more fun to win or lose that contest." A faraway look comes into Reno's eyes as he pauses again.

"So anyways, the mission to destroy that bridge and look after a couple rookies looked pretty easy. The plan was to slip in and out unnoticed, so we went in armed light, just sidearms and blades. We could carry more explosives that way and move quicker on the way out. Drop off was by sub and they planed to pick us up the same way. We went out the torpedo tubes with SCUBA gear and after about a half-mile swim in the dark we were there. Things were going real smooth, all the charges were set and we were climbing around under the bridge setting the timers when a patrol showed up. Either they were way the hell ahead of schedule or our spies screwed up. One of the newbies got a little twitchy, made some noise, and Wong was onto us. So I jump back into the water, yelling for them to follow. Mission planners figured getting discovered on the way out was possible, so we were using dual-mode detonators. Soon as we were outa range I used the manual remote, blew the bridge with the patrol still on it. Patrol boats were closing in, so I led us back up the side and into the bush."

"We'd found a clear spot and radioed for pick up when Wong caught up to us, trying to bring us in alive for questioning. For what it's worth, we managed to run through all our ammo, plus the ammo in a few captured rifles, and had blood on our blades before they dragged us down. I woke up in a POW camp. They got a little pissed when they saw this," Reno says while pointing to his tattoo. "So they gave me these pretty early on." he says while pointing to the scars running across his cheeks. "I found out later it was a sort of ritual punishment for someone that caused them a lot of damage. They called it 'tears of blood'. I never did get the symbolism behind it, but I kinda took it as a compliment on my skills. It also meant they had a painful execution planned for when they finished interrogating me. Interrogation was mostly beatings. Those bastards really liked using wire whips." Reno turns and pulls his hair aside, revealing a densely packed mass of criss-crossing scars. Releasing his hair, he turns back.

"I've told you before how hard it was recruiting Turks. Once our spies got word back that all three of us were alive and in one piece, command saw it as ultra valuable pieces of war material being held by the enemy and started planning a rescue. The PR if they managed to pull out the other POWs would be a nice bonus too. Rude was mostly healed up by then and pulled some strings to get on the rescue mission. So did Angel and her partner, Elhaym. Most people just called her Elly. The three of them crept in and planted charges on the generator, radio transmitter, guard towers, and the guard barracks. When they blew the charges it killed most of the guards, cut the rest off from outside, and signaled a circling Gelnika overhead that dropped a platoon of Soldier Airbornes. The three of them cut across camp for the shack the three of us were being held in, going right through any guards dumb enough to get in their way. Angel came crashing through that door with a big dagger in hand, blood up both arms to the elbows, and death in her eye. Scared the crap outa a lot of the other prisoners, but when I was laying there bleeding into that bamboo cot I swear I'd never seen her look more beautiful, even though she was wearing that baggy cammo. Rude was almost tripping on her heels rushing in the door behind her."

"It was almost a race..." Rude adds. "As soon as we got through the fence, Angela and I sprinted the whole way to the shack. We didn't even stop to deal with guards, just cut them down and kept running."

"Angel on me with her med-kit before I knew what hit me. Business before pleasure. She went through the bandages in her kit and half of Rude's while Rude and Elly stood guard. After Angel made sure I wasn't going to bleed to death in her arms she kissed me. Real interesting kiss, it had the taste of my own blood mixed with tears of joy from us both. Yeah, I know that's really damned corny, being so damned glad to see someone again you cry over her. Probably had something to do with delirium from dehydration and all the beatings. Anyway, that was my excuse, I never heard what her's was." Reno says with a sad little smile at the old inside joke.

"Sometime during all this patching and smooching the Soldier boys hit dirt outside and mopped up the rest of the guards. A whole damn swarm of med-evac choppers and gunships came in behind them and started loading up prisoners. Most of us weren't in any shape to walk, so that took a while. It really surprised me when Angel picked me up in a fireman's carry and carried me out to a chopper. This was back when Mako injections were still going through field testing with Solider and I normally outweighed her by about forty pounds. I had one of my longer medical leaves after that. Rude got to stay with Angel's team while I recovered, the lucky bastard. That sorta thing didn't happen too often since command tried to avoid mixed teams. Claimed it'd cause 'unnecessary distractions'. When they weren't in the field, they were giving me some damned good visits. Heh, Rude and Elly had a real knack for knowing when to give us some privacy."

"I thought you said you met her screwing around on a public beach. Why would you need privacy?" Elena asks.

"We liked to be alone when we got to talking seriously. We didn't need privacy for messing around. Hell, when I'd healed up enough to mess around, Rude and Elly were standing right there in the hospital room cheering us on, making all sorts of crazy suggestions." Reno laughs a bit. "That probably sounds really perverted, but it's just how things were back then. We were all damned good friends and they were seriously glad to see I hadn't been permanently damaged. Once the pillow talk started to get serious, Rude and Elly took off. I'm sure they didn't mind since those two had the whole 'friends with benefits' thing to keep them busy."

"Benefits?" Elena asks, unfamiliar with the term.

"Yeah, you know," Reno makes a thrusting gesture with his hips, "benefits. You don't see it so much anymore, but it happened alot back then. Once I was up to walking again, those three were dragging me all over the place." He laughs a little. "I was the only guy on the beach with an IV bag."

"I'm surprised the doctors let you out like that," Elena states.

"They didn't want to, but we were very... persuasive," Rude says with a devious smile.

"I don't know how they managed to be between missions at the right time, but they even managed to make sure I didn't spend my eighteenth birthday sitting alone in a hospital room. That's how I spent my fifteenth, wasn't exactly what I'd call fun. I don't know how the hell they got their hands on it, but Rude and Elly walked into my room that morning pushing one of those cheesy giant cardboard cakes. Angel pops out wearing nothing but a pair of those fake bunny ears and a smile and starts singing 'happy birthday'. I wasn't sure if I should laugh at how corny it was or tear off my hospital gown and climb into that cake with her."

"So he sat there with a goofy looking grin instead," Rude interjects with one of his rare smiles on his normally impassive face.

Reno chuckles while refilling his mug. "Best damned birthday ever, even if I did look stupid. Hell of a lot better than my seventeenth. I spent that one getting rained on, laying in the mud in some bushes, staring through my rifle's scope, and waiting for my target to show up. As cool as the cake gag was, they had another gift, hospital discharge papers. I wasn't fit for duty yet, but it was damned good to get back to my place. Officer's quarters was a commandeered hotel. Rude and me shared a dinky little room, maybe ten feet square plus a small bathroom. It had a couple tiny futons and a little TV bolted to the wall. It got kinda crowded sometimes when all four of us were off, but we mostly just slept there. Most of our downtime was spent hanging out at bars and beaches while we waited for command to give us a mission. Hell, we need to get to work. Can't believe I've been rambling on like this, we've been done eating nearly a half-hour. I think you're being a bad influence on me, Lena," he jokes with a smirk.

"Reno, you talk too much," Elena says in her best imitation of Reno, even copying his trademark smirk. This draws a surprised laugh from her two companions.

"Touché," Reno says with a grin. "Guess you're not the only one being a bad influence. Hey, since you slept in and missed your chance to get first dibs on the shower, I'll let you have second. Rude and me'll be working back there." he says while pointing to a door on the other end of the kitchen. He and Rude refill their mugs before heading that way.

Walking into the main room while thinking about the story she'd just heard, Elena stops to retrieve clean slacks, dress shirt, and underwear from her duffel bag. Continuing into the bathroom, she's surprised to see the pile of equipment from the previous day missing. After setting her clean clothes on the counter, she slips off what she'd slept in and adds it to the pile of filthy clothes from the previous day, and then steps into the shower, still thinking about Reno's story.

Seating themselves in front of a large, battered table that sits against one of the walls of Reno's storage room, Reno and Rude sit down their mugs and get to work cleaning the equipment piled there. "What's with all the old stories?" Rude asks while expertly field stripping his submachine gun.

"Just teaching the new blood some Turk history," Reno calmly replies as he swiftly disassembles his sidearm.

"Bullshit," Rude says while cleaning his SMG's gas tube with a long cotton swab. "You never talk about Angela with anyone, not even Tseng. It's not like you to pour your heart out like you've been doing. What's the real reason?"

Reno's quiet for a minute, deep in thought as his hands smoothly perform the familiar tasks involved in weapon maintenance without conscious guidance. "I don't know, man. When she came out to the hot tub in that swimsuit with her hair back, Lena looked a lot like Angel. I had to tell her something to explain why I got that shocked look on my face when I saw her. I shoulda stopped right there, but it just kept coming for some reason. Same thing this morning."

"I'll tell you why," Rude states, "you're falling for her."

"What!" Shocked, Reno's hands slip, spilling a bottle of powder solvent and sending his sidearm's recoil spring flying across the room. "Shit!" he yells as he races after the errant spring.

"You wouldn't have jumped like that if I hadn't hit the mark," Rude calmly states as Reno returns to the table with the spring. "You should ask her out when this's all over."

Reno once again works in silence, thinking deeply. He finishes reassembling his sidearm and starts on the next weapon. "I'll admit she's cute, but every time I look at her, I don't just see her, I see Angel's ghost there too. I'm not gonna use Lena as a substitute, she deserves better. Besides, she talks too much."

"Excuses..." Rude responds. "Elena may resemble Angela, but that's the only similarity. And you both talk too much. One of these days you're going to have to stop running away every time you start to fall for someone. You know Angela wanted you to move on."

"You think I don't know that? We both figured we probably wouldn't live long with the type of missions we did. We both agreed whoever lived longer should go on with life and enjoy however much they had left." Reno sighs. "Heh, if Angel could see me now she'd probably be disgusted with how weak I'm being."

"No," Rude disagrees, "Angela knew you better than you know yourself. She knew you'd have trouble moving on. She even tried to get Elly and I to promise to help you find someone else if we lived long enough." Rude pauses to sip his coffee. "Elly told her 'You mustn't think we're very good friends if you think you need to get a promise out of us for that'. I told her 'Turks stick together, we would've done it even if you'd never asked'. She really liked hearing that, gave us one of those 'angelic' smiles she normally reserved for you. We didn't tell her, but Elly and I thought Angela'd have trouble moving on too."

"Well, that explains why you've tried playing matchmaker so much over the years. I'd always thought it was 'cause Elly'd been a bad influence on you. If both of you'd made it through the war, you'd probably have me married off by now..." Rude chuckles at this thought. A nostalgic smile briefly crosses his face as he remembers how him and Elly had made a game of setting each other up with people and then comforting each other when things didn't work out. Seeing an opening, Reno continues, "so, now that we're all fighting on the same team, are you gonna try making a move on Tifa? I still remember what you said back in Gongaga."

"She's got her eyes on Strife. And you're not going to change the subject that easily."

"He's still pineing over that dead Ancient. Plenty of room for you to swoop in and make your move," Reno continues, not giving up on changing the subject.

"Maybe." Rude decides to attack from a different angle. "You know Elena finally managed to get Tseng to ask her out?"

"Really? I'm kinda surprised the way she went after him worked. So when'd they go out?" Reno asked, relieved that his attempt to change the subject had apparently worked.

"They didn't. He told her he'd take her to dinner after getting back from the mission to the temple."

"Shit. Poor Lena..."

"You could help her get over it. Ask her out, it'll be good for both of you."

"...you're not gonna give up on this, are you?"

"Nope. Elly taught me too well for that," Rude calmly replies.

Reno runs a hand through his hair, leaving a smear of gun oil on his forehead. "Heh, well..." Reno cuts off as the sound of running water from the bathroom stops. "I'll think about it," he continues in a whisper. "Gotta take care of business before taking time for my personal problems." He then stands up and walks out of the room, on his way to the soon to be vacant bathroom.

After finishing brushing her hair into place and wishing Reno owned a hair dryer, Elena exits the bathroom and is surprised to see Reno waiting there with a wad of clean clothing in one hand. He swiftly steps past her into the bathroom without a word and Elena hears the sound of running water a moment later. "Geez, someone's in a hurry..."

As the shocking ice cold water pours over him, Reno focuses on a mental technique taught to him by Tseng years ago that allows him to sublimate worry about personal problems and focus on the job. He hasn't needed to use this technique since preparing for the mission to destroy sector seven.

After stopping in the kitchen for a fresh mug of coffee, Elena enters the back room and stops, surprised at the armory she sees. Rack after rack of arms line the walls and several freestanding shelves of other equipment sit in the center of the room. She inhales the pleasant scents of coffee and gun oil, mixed in the air with the acrid odors of powder solvent and leather cleaner. Most of what she sees are concealable weapons, the bread and butter of a Turk on the job. A wide assortment of handguns, carbines, short shotguns, submachineguns, knives, clubs, small swords, and more exotic implements dominate the room. Several larger weapons are also present, assorted full-sized rifles, light machineguns, a few heavy machineguns, and even a solitary shoulder-fired anti-tank missile that was leaning against one corner of the room. "Wow..." she breathes, awed at the collection. Walking up to the nearest shelf, Elena scans the labels of a series of bottles sitting on one of the shelves, spotting assorted useful chemicals like sodium pentathol, potassium cyanide, chloroform, and others. Glancing at nearby shelves, she spots surveillance and counter-surveillance gear, small bins of materia, assorted explosives, and many cases of ammunition.

"This's pretty typical for a major safehouse." Rude explains, seeing Elena's surprised look. "Everything we could need for nearly any type of mission we might be given. It's a lot more efficient than waiting until we need something and sending a request to the armaments department." Elena nods at this, familiar with how slow the armaments department was.

"Why're these ones out in the middle?" Elena asks while pointing to a small table in the center of the room with a small horizontal rack on it that holds four battered old rifles, all fitted with old-fashioned wooden stocks. Two of them were bolt-action rifles with large scopes and the other two were automatic rifles with long bayonets mounted on them.

"The two lefty rifles are what Reno used in the war. The other two were Angela's." Rude answers.

"Oh. What's this?" she asks while pointing to a small metal disc on a chain that hung from the barrel of the left-handed sniper rifle.

"Old Wutai military ID. It used to belong to their top sniper. Reno kept it as a trophy after killing him in a sniper duel." Rude answers while applying a thin coat of gun oil to the blade of a throwing knife, then slipping the blade into the sheath built into his jacket.

Elena sits at the large table and gets to work on her gear. "I guess you two've been through a lot together, huh?"

"Yeah."

"So what was it like back then?"

"Unusual. We were on the brink of death most of the time, but we felt incredibly alive. It's hard to describe," he says as he finishes cleaning his last piece of equipment. Placing the snub-nosed magnum revolver into a coat pocket, Rude moves on to Reno's pile.

"Hey, I think this one's stuck," Elena says, holding up her hideout piece.

"Those always have a tight fit on the takedown bar. Use this," He suggests, handing over a small rubber mallet.

"Thanks," she says when the mallet loosens the stubborn part. She starts to hand it pack, but Rude shakes his head.

"You'll need it again to get it back in." Finished with Reno's pile, he reaches over and starts helping Elena with her pile.

"Almost finished?" Reno asks, stepping back into the room wearing a wrinkled pair of slacks and an untucked, unbuttoned dress shirt. Walking over to the table, he begins to strap on his gunbelt and shoulder harness.

"Last one," Elena announces as she snaps her hideout pistol back together. Rude waits patiently while Reno and Elena don their jackets, shoes, and weapons and Elena ties her tie.

"Alright, let's go round up some transport," Reno commands. The trio makes a detour in the kitchen to fill insulated travel mugs with coffee, then exit the apartment and wait for the elevator after Reno presses the button.

Author's Note:

Thanks for the great reviews Bruna Aquino, TheDonutMistress, The Tiramisu Of Impending Doom(Cool penname, by the way.), and Secretselphie-tilmitt. The encouragement was very helpful in getting through some minor writer's block. Hopefully no one minds the lack of action in this chapter, I should be able to work some in for the next one. Once again, flashbacks ballooned beyond my expectations and I wound up ending this chapter earlier in the plotline than I planned.

The flashbacks gave me an idea for a spin-off I'm thinking of writing after I finish this story: the Turks hanging out in various bars or whatever while Reno and Rude tell Elena stories about old missions they went on. Of course I'd use the same backstory so I could get more mileage out of Angela and Elly. So, do you think the parts in this chapter and the previous one with Reno telling old war stories are good enough to stand on their own? Or should I ditch the idea?

Lately I've gotten into the habit of following back the links in those signed reviews and checking out and reviewing some of my reviewer's works. I guess I'll make that my excuse for why this update took so long. /grin/ Seriously though, it turns out I've got some pretty good writers reading this. So check their stuff out, it'll give you something to do while you're waiting for Mr. Lazy Author here to finish the next chapter. And hey, leave a review and I'll probably return the favor whenever I get around to it.

Also, a cookie goes to anyone who knows where I got the name for Elly. Here's a hint, I got half my pen name from the same game.

New Note: Edited to add '--'s to make scene changes more clear.

Edited again because some site update deleted all the '--' lines I used to use to denote scene changes. So time to slap horizontal rulers into all my fics.