Author's Note: I yawned a bit, but I didn't fall asleep on this story, I swear.

WHEN THE LEVEE BREAKS

BY RENO SPIEGEL

- - - - -

Elena shut down for three days. Whether it was Johnny or Rude, she suddenly had no idea what to do with herself.

Tseng, the beacon of leadership she'd had before, suddenly seemed a sort of false prophet. All he was going to lead her into these days were torn clothes and dead friends, and she didn't feel like a traitor at all when she threw the card with the arrow into the trash can, stopping herself just short of setting it on fire.

She hadn't crawled up in bed and forgotten how to live, but she'd lost focus on anything. She'd forgotten to pay for her second night's rest until an envelope was slid under the door, a letter inside asking that if she was going to stay again, she had to either answer the door when the management knocked or send someone down with her second night of gil. Embarrassed that she hadn't even heard a knock at the door, she put the gil into the envelope and left it at the top of the stairs. Someone, she thought, will get some use out of it.

She was eating, but infrequently. She didn't want to die, but she didn't want to think either, and the middle ground was to lock into a surreal haze, amble around her room straightening the prints on the wall, shower just so she could clean the tub, arrange and rearrange the different things on the shelves and on the sink counter. She watched television and reacquainted herself with the news, finally grasping a slim notion of what was happening in the world. Though no one on the news was saying so, Meteor was a continuing problem, and no one knew how to cope with it or how to deal with the fact that it was still something to cope with.

She felt dirty. She'd stolen Rude's wallet and was living off what had to be his savings.

Elena had come to terms with the fact that Rude was dead, and that she had had the biggest hand in it. She knew she'd been raped, but she refused to deal with it, which was probably the main component in her mental lockdown. She'd heard sirens shortly after she'd checked in, but mum was the word on what had happened. Procedure happened, she thought, and that's the way it should be.

She wrote letters to where she thought her family might live – wrote numerous copies of the same, in case they were in different places. An address in Junon was where the first would go, then to Costa where they'd always wanted to retire, a few different friends' houses in Kalm, places like that. She spent the afternoon writing them, reading one aloud to see how it sounded in her own, real voice – trying to connect with even herself, which was becoming increasingly more difficult the more she decided not to think about.

She had to think about it, though, at the end of her third day at the inn. There was a gentle knock at the door, and she put her shirt and pants on before opening it. She had tried to distance herself from the suit and thus had been roaming the inn room in the nude since she'd gotten there, aside from room service visits and now tonight. At the opening of the door, the wife of the inn owner – "You get to know people," Tseng had said around a grin, "especially people that own places you can sleep in." – was holding a large white box with a delivery slip on top, addressed to Ms. Elena Slimms.

Her stomach turned. The Turks had taken to calling her Slimms because she was so small compared to the rest of them.

Simple math told her who had sent the package.

She thanked and tipped the woman who had delivered it, not even worried about being recognized and called out on her former affiliations. She took the box to the bed and set it down, much the way she'd laid out her suit just over a week ago. The box was a trademark of ShinRa, and in it were clothes that were much more casual than the suit she was used to retrieving from it. A T-shirt and loose jeans confronted her, but not before a letter on top did. She took the hair tie from around it – Nice touch, she admitted – and opened it, not surprised that it was short.

-

Rookie,

I know the score, and I know you're in town. I understand that this isn't easy, but if you have to come

see me, wear this. I got out years ago, but my landlord's smarter than I like to admit and I don't need

her thinking I'm back in.

Reno.

-

He always put a period after his signature, small and inside the loop of the O, so that anyone he sent mail to knew it was authentic. She hadn't needed the persuasion this time, but she was living proof that old habits were meant to die hard.

For a moment she was angry, and it was nice to feel it. The letter insinuated that his landlord was going to have time to form an opinion on him after the meeting – if there was one – like he knew he was going to be around afterward to defend his name. The anger faded, though, because it was just typical post-ShinRa Reno that wanted a clean image, not so much a questioning of her skill as a killer. He would have delivered it himself, or come to visit, if he'd thought she couldn't take him down, but his keeping his distance was a nod enough to her talent.

Elena stared at that box the same way she'd stared at her suit, and each one had just as much weight. This time, though, she put the lid back on, tucked the letter into her pocket, and put the box in the bathroom under the sink, hoping feebly that it might get dripped on and ruined. She stripped off her garments, too, placing them with some unintentional reverence on top of the same box, and climbed back into bed.

She returned to the television, trying to have an opinion on the Last Seven under Midgar, but he'd hooked her like a fish. As much as she tried to not care, that package had reminded her that not only was there something to be done – there was Turk business to be done. Much like bloodlust, there was still something appealing about being able to make a name and image for the blue suit, as much as she rejected hers right now. He gave her the option of not finishing the job, but it had reminded her deep down that there was a job and that its only possible status was to be finished.

She turned the television off.

The silence was deafening, like the moment after which the final note has been played but no one has applauded yet.

She turned out the light by the switch on the wall, and considered the suspended red digits of the alarm clock on the nightstand. She'd been dumbly staring at the television for almost an hour, thinking and rethinking that there was something she couldn't avoid doing as long as someone else knew she was supposed to do it, and it was nearly one in the morning.

She lie on her back and closed her eyes, determined to get a real night's rest for the first time in three.

Tomorrow, she thought.

Tomorrow I have to see Reno.

Author's Note: Writing these introverted chapters to Secret Chiefs 3 music is definitely the way to go. I recommend it.

The finish line, as they say, is in sight.