Authors note: Woot!! Things are finally gonna get heating up. Pretty please review? I've not been doing this very long and comments would be greatly appreciated. I'm not sure how long this story is gonna be because I keep thinking of thngs to add as I go along. Oh, and the title of this chapter, I was quite pleased with it. I can't usually come up with good titles. It is of course refering Claudia. Well, enjoy


Chapter 7 – Blood on Our Hands Still Pumps through Our Hearts

"Reno!" Elena screamed, running up to him. She lifted his head up of the ground.

"Reno? Please say something. Don't die, please." Elena found herself crying over him.

"'Lena?" he panted. He struggled to his feet, clutching onto Elena for support. He seemed quite stable, despite the amount of blood he was loosing.

"C'mon. I'll take you home. You'll have to show me where to go though."

"'Lena, the mission needs finishing." He said, seriously

"Reno, you got to be kidding me. Come on." She gently dragged him. Reno, not having the energy to argue, followed.


Elena's back was crippling her by the time she got back to Reno's apartment, because of basically having to carry him all the way. But she remembered she had to stay strong. It was getting harder and harder to tell herself this when it came to cleaning Reno up. The amount of blood on his shirt she didn't think anybody even had it their body. She poured boiling water into a bowl and put copious amounts of salt in it. She remembered her mother doing this when she was little to stopped grazed knees getting infected. Grabbing the bowl and some cloths, she headed back into the living room.

Reno was sitting on his sofa, looking strangely bright-eyed. Elena knew he had no shirt on because she had removed it earlier, but she couldn't help but stare slightly at him.

She sat down next to him with the cloths and bowl in her hand.

"Now, this is gonna hurt a little." She said putting the cloth on the wound. She felt his muscles tense.

"Fuck!" he said loudly. "What the hell is that?"

"It's salt water. It stops it from getting infected." She said, matter-of-factly. "You don't want what happened last time to happen again do you?" she felt a twinge of guilt as she remembered who had attacked Reno the first time. She couldn't keep it to herself any longer.

"Reno, I know who attacked you before." She said quickly

"What? Who?"

"It was Claudia's boyfriend. I don't know why, I just know it was him." Reno looked shocked for a minute, and then he narrowed his eyes.

"These idiots really got something against me, don't they?" Elena nodded and carried on cleaning Reno's wounds. He bit his lip hard to try and ease the stinging. She hated seeing him in pain, but it had to be done.

"There, done." She said kindly, wiping up the last of the liquid.

"Thank you." He sighed, relaxing his muscles. He had bit too hard on his lip, it was now bleeding.

"Oh, Reno." She sighed, laughing slightly.

"So more to the point, what's gonna happen? They are gonna keep trying till they kill me, aren't they?"

"I don't know. I don't understand why they are doing this. I mean, it's not even me anymore is it? It's just you."

"She did look pretty familiar you know, the first time I saw her, but I don't think I met her before. You usually remember people as stupid as that."

Elena stayed silent, listening to his every word as she finished putting the bandage around Reno's wound to try and stop the blood flow.

"I'd better ring Tseng, hadn't I?" she said when she had finished.

"Yeah I guess." He handed her his cellphone. "You left yours at home." He added, seeing the confused look on her face.

"How do you know that?"

"I'm a Turk, I'm trained to notice every little detail." He smirked.

Elena saw Reno watching her as she dialled Tseng's number. She couldn't quite place the look that he had in his eyes, but it was making her quite uncomfortable. She tried to ignore him as she heard Tseng pick up his phone.

"Hello?"

"Tseng? It's Elena."

"Oh hey, how did the mission go?"

"Not too well."

"Oh, why?" he said, his voice full of concern

"Claudia got away. After nearly killing Reno."

"Uhhh…killing? Not again…"

"She shot him. I've managed to clean him up best I can, I'm at his apartment with him now."

"Okay. Can you manage to stay there tonight? I'm gonna find it difficult to get away and I think it's a good idea if someone is there to watch him."

Elena's heart leapt, she didn't really know why. "Sure, I can do that."

She hoped she didn't sound too eager. She looked over at Reno as she put his cell phone down on the table.

"So…you gonna stay here to … keep an eye on me?" Elena could no longer ignore the strange grin on his face.