- A Final Fantasy VII Reno Fanfiction - by Nightcrawler666 -

Please R&R, not getting many reviews lately! Gonna TRY to end this at 15 chapters even though there's not actually much of a plot. Hoping it'll all unfold in the next three chapters. If you have any problems with chapter length e.g too short/too long PM me (or put it in a review) and I'll fix it up for you. Obviously if more people say to lengthen them I'll lengthen them. If no-one says anything I won't do anything. As if I needed to point that out LOL!

Chapter 12 - Taking punches

"Hey, Lou!" Reno whispered, poking his head round the side of her door. The room was that same scary white colour, like everything was clean. Lou grumbled and rolled over until her back was to the door.

"Fine, if you're gonna be like that then I might just leave, yo." Reno laughed, still hushing his voice. Lou immediately flipped over and stared in disbelief at the man in her doorway. Her jaw dropped.

Reno walked over and threw Lou onto her back, then planted a kiss on her cheek.
"So, you alright now? They used a level 2 cure on your leg, yo." He asked. It was strange to see his usually cocky smirk replaced with such a worried look. Lou nodded and noticed a shape in the doorway. Her frown made Reno turn too.

It was Kyle.

"And why the fuck are you here?" Reno shouted, raising his voice.
"What? So I'm not allowed to see her now?" Kyle said, keeping a blank expression and making his voice remain calm. 'Just to piss him off' , he thought. It worked. Reno planted a fist in Kyle's stomach, winding him, and pointed at the door.

"Get out."
"Reno don't!" Lou pleaded, grabbing the corner of his blazer and pulling hard. The angry Turk whipped round and was about to argue when he caught himself, then slapped her hand away. He shook his head in disbelief and put his hand on his temple.

"I need to go then, yo."
"Why Reno? Please don't leave…"
"I swear - I'd kill him given the chance, yo."
"Please! Reno!" Lou leaped out of bed and was about to run after him when Kyle pushed her violently back onto the mattress.

"You don't need him anymore, Lou. He's worthless." Lou couldn't stand him saying that, and slapped him as hard as she could. She showed him the door herself, ignoring the pain still in her leg.

Reno was late to work, but at least he'd seen Lou for a few minutes. The elevators were down. He walked the corridors totally unaware of the happy greetings from passers by, then slammed the door to the Turks' office behind him. Everybody stared at him and he stamped over to his desk to do his paperwork and fill out the many forms. Tseng gave him a look that said 'If that falls off it's hinges, you're paying Reno' and returned to his paperwork, and Elena whispered things to Rude which he accepted with a simple nod.

A while through the stack Reno glanced over to Lou's desk. It made him angry to see it empty. It was ridiculously neat compared to his, everything it it's own little designated area. She had a tiny filing cabinet that was covered in sticky notes but somehow still looked neat, and a pair of keys hung from the lock on the top drawer. It was lockable?

"Reno." Tseng's voice broke his dream. "Lunch. You coming?"
"Yeah sure Just… Gimme a minute, yo." Reno sighed. He hadn't eaten anything since Lou had been shot the night before. He put his EMR in his jacket and threw his pen into the pile of paper and walked out.

As soon as he was in the corridor he put a hole in the wall with his fist where he knew the CCTV wouldn't catch him. He kept walking with the pain, and stood next to Rude in the queue for lunch. Elena whispered something else to him and they both stared at Reno for a while.

"What? Got a problem, yo?" He shouted in their faces. Rude turned and shrugged, while Elena's eyes filled with tears she tried desperately to keep in. Reno rolled his eyes and stormed out again, punching yet another hole in the wall and doing even more of his paperwork. He wasn't hungry anyway.

After he'd signed out Reno decided to go and see Lou again. He'd force himself to stay even if Kyle was there. Anything just to see her. Reno didn't know why Kyle showed up anyway. How did he know about her accident? It's not like she told anyone. Naturally, the Turks were the first ones told about their comrade's casualty, but how had he found out? It made Reno uneasy. He got there and she was asleep, but he sat on the chair next to her and held her hand, even when he was also in dreamland. Kind of.

Lou woke up and her head turned on the pillow to see a torch of red hair next to her. Reno was sat on the chair by her bed holding her hand, and she prodded him to see just how asleep he was. Not very. His head jerked up and his whole body jolted forward. The chair's spine groaned under such stress and snapped off, making Reno fall back into the wall. Lou just giggled.

He looked angry at first but when he saw Lou his eyes softened and he moved some of her Golden hair out of her face.

"You should wear it down more often, yo. It looks nice." Lou blushed and pushed him away. She hid under the covers for a while and when she popped her head back up her hair was in that same neat bun. Just without the pink ribbon. Her SOLDIER blue eyes glowed in the dim light emitted by the floor lamp across the room. For once Reno actually thought about whether anyone else knew.

"Um, Lou. Does anyone else know about your, uh… Past occupations, yo?" He questioned, trying to make it as indirect as he could. Apparently Lou had been a SOLDIER sent out to capture Zack Fair, a good friend of hers. She was one of few survivors, but when she found out that Zack wasn't, she massacred around 200 SOLDIER's. Then she ran away and joined AVALANCHE, which was why she had the pink ribbon. She was the one who caused the old President ShinRa's death. It wasn't natural at all.

Lou considered the question hard. Of course there were her superiors - they knew - but unless someone had figured it out then nobody except Reno had been told directly by her.

"Only you, Lazard, Rufus and Tseng. I haven't told anyone else, but I think Zack should recognize me since he was my mentor when Genesis went crazy." She answered. Reno had never seen her so calm when talking about her past. He knew by now she was ridiculously sensitive.

"Cool. Thanks for telling me, yo. You didn't have to." He smiled and kissed her, although it lasted longer than it was mean to, and left to go home and finally eat something.