Tseng sat at his desk, touching a hand to his bandaged stomach where the frag grenade had torn him open. The doctors had patched him up well, but they hadn't had enough materia to completely heal him. Not with some of the wounds the other Turks had come in sporting.

The Wutaiian man sat back with a sigh, looking out the window. He was still smarting from Reno's remarks concerning the blame in the situation, mostly because he knew he was right. Disregarding the relationship between Rude and Reno (and he knew damn well it wasn't platonic), the two of them worked best together, and he shouldn't have separated them.

Of course, he'd never counted on Rude getting captured—he honestly hadn't thought it possible. A volatile Reno, hurting from separation and worry, was the last thing they needed. He was unpredictable on his best days, which was normally a good quality to have in a Turk. Now, it was a curse.

Elena entered his office with a report in her hands, and he looked up. "Can you ask Reno to come here?" he inquired of her, taking the report. She nodded, leaving the room again, and he focused on the paperwork in his hands.

She came rushing back not a minute later, her pretty eyes wide and fearful. "He's not here."

Tseng's head shot up. "What?"

"His office is empty and he's not answering his phone," she told him. "You don't think—"

Tseng pinched the bridge of his nose. He did not need this right now. "Why didn't you have someone keep an eye on him?"

"W-well, he had agreed that it was for the best to come back here. I assumed—"

"You assumed wrong!" Tseng snapped at her. "We're talking about Reno here, who's mightily pissed off and out for blood! Why would you think he would just stay put?!"

To her credit, Elena took his angry words in stride. "I'm sorry, sir," she said stiffly. "What would you have me do?"

Tseng put his head in his hands. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "It's not your fault, Elena. I'm just—" He felt her small hand run through his hair in a soothing gesture.

"Under a lot of pressure," she finished, then guided his face out of his hands so he was looking at her. "We're here to follow your orders," she said softly, pressing her lips to his in an encouraging kiss, hoping he wouldn't gripe at her about displaying affection in the workplace. "You just have to give us some."

Back at the SOLDIER-X compound, Reno was crouching on the roof of the command center. The worst of his wounds had been healed, but the burns from the mako-infused blood were still throbbing a little on his chest. Night had fallen, which he had thought would make sneaking in easier, until he'd remembered that mako would make the enemy able to see in the dark. Luckily, the remaining creatures seemed to be busy in the command center. Lucky for him, presumably unlucky for Rude, but it probably meant he was still alive. Would I know if he died? Would I feel it? Reno asked himself, and the fact that he didn't know the answer scared him.

Reno had studied the floor plans extensively before leaving headquarters, and was now crawling through the air ducts, checking them against the map in his head so he knew where to go. He was moving more slowly than he would've liked, but the alternative to that was to move noisily, and he couldn't risk that. He hadn't just stolen the floor plans from Shinra, he'd also raided the armory while everyone else was still reeling from the defeat, and the new weapons he'd outfitted himself with made his form bulkier than usual, which he was unused to.

Voices floated up through the metal of the duct, and Reno paused, realizing he'd reached the central chamber of the command center without even knowing it. There was a grate set into the metal and he carefully lay on his stomach to peer through it.

Rude had retreated into himself, a defense mechanism against the torture that he'd endured. He sat slumped in his chair, hands lashed tightly to the arms, much as he'd done to Reiss Leventhal so many weeks before. The pain he felt was muted, like a distant memory, and time had no meaning. He had no idea how much time had passed since he'd been captured, and he didn't care. The creatures' murmurs around him held no meaning, just an endless drone he couldn't even start to decipher.

He heard the splintering crash through his trance, but it didn't register until a river of flaming red slashed across his blood-soaked vision, and Reno landed in a catlike crouch and a shower of dust and debris behind the ex-SOLDIER creature that was standing in front of Rude. Rude's hazy eyes took him in silently as the redhead straightened, his eyes burning with a cold light.

"End of the line, SOLDIER-boy," he said quietly, coldly. Up came Reno's arm in a blur of motion, and he put a bullet between the eyes of the howling creature. The look on his face was frightening, his teeth bared and his face pale and drawn as he braced himself for the other creatures' attacks. They had been ringed around Rude's chair, the six of them who were left, and now the remaining five all charged Reno at once.

Rude saw him take hits in the face and ribs and strained at his bonds, but was unable to break free, and even if he had, he was in no shape to fight. Now out of his trance, the pain had come back in full force, strong enough to make him dizzy.

Reno ducked a blow, his right hand still curled around his pistol, his left clutching a buck knife he'd taken from the Shinra armory in a reverse grip. He whipped his foot across one of the ex-SOLDIER's faces, biting back a gasp of pain as he connected with its unnaturally hard skin. It was hard enough to bruise him, but not hard enough to withstand the razor sharp edge of the knife as he came around and dragged it through the creature's throat, putting extra muscle behind the cut to compensate.

Rage evidently turned Reno into an even more impressive fighter, Rude decided, not to mention the flair of spontaneity that he tended to have. It was that flair that had gotten him his promotion to second in command, his way of looking at a situation and being able to pull off what most others would dismiss as ridiculous. Rude's massive muscles and ability to pound any living human into pulp made him an asset. Reno's quickness and his ability to think outside the box made him invaluable. The big man shifted a little and a fresh wave of pain rolled over him, making him gasp a little as his vision went black.

He wasn't out long—at least he didn't think so. Rude woke to Reno working at his bonds, and the redhead was still thankfully in one piece. One glance around the room and Rude saw the deformed bodies of the last of SOLDIER-X sprawled lifelessly on the floor. Reno was unsteady, bleeding from a dozen different wounds, holes burned in his clothing from the mako-rich blood that had struck him. His usually deft fingers scrabbled at the roped around Rude's arms and finally he gave up, carefully cutting through them with the knife he still held.

Reno crouched in front of him, taking Rude's face in one hand and turning it a little to survey the damage—a clearly broken nose, a black eye, numerous cuts, but nothing too permanent-looking. The redhead pulled the bigger Turk to his feet painfully, and Rude leaned on him heavily, unable to support most of his weight. Reno clenched his teeth with the extra weight but bore it gamely, half-dragging his partner and limping himself as they made their way to the exit. It was agonizing and slow, the only sound coming from them their labored breathing and muffled grunts of pain.

"About time you came," Rude managed to say through the thick coppery taste of blood.

"Had to break, step on, and piss all over a few rules first," Reno replied wearily, and Rude didn't have enough energy to ask him to elaborate.

They reached the door to the rest of the compound and Reno kicked it open with some of the last of his strength, pulling Rude forward into the darkness of the night. The stars and moon, free from the pollution that had been present in Midgar, shone down to light their way. They made it less than ten feet before Reno's knees gave and he slumped to the ground with Rude on top of him. The redhead wriggled free, getting to his feet slowly, looking back at the hated building. He tugged an incendiary grenade from his pocket and clenched the pin between his teeth, pulling it free and hurling the grenade back through the open door of the command center. Reno crouched over Rude, shielding his body as best he could with his smaller one and pressing his hands over his partner's ears. The explosion nearly deafened him, and he felt something pop in his head, followed by warm wetness trickling out of his ear, and Reno knew he'd blown an ear drum. Unable to gather the strength to pull Rude to his feet again, he collapsed on the ground, exhausted as the heat from the burning building seared his back.

That was how Tseng and Elena found them not much later, sprawled on the ground, both unconscious.

"I'll be damned," Tseng said softly, looking at the burning building and then back to Reno's prone form. "He killed them all, and saved his partner in the process. How can I punish him for this?"

"I don't know," Elena said with a little smile, checking Rude's pulse to make sure he was still alive. "But you'd better. He'll never let you forget it otherwise." She pulled out her phone to place a call to their medics, and within ten minutes, the limp bodies of her unconscious colleagues were being loaded onto a chopper.

One look at Tseng's pinched face and Elena knew he was still feeling guilty. He didn't say anything, but she knew all the same. "Let's go back," Elena suggested softly. "There's nothing we can do for them now." She touched his arm gently, and he let her slip her smaller hand into his to lead him home.

Rude came to in another unfamiliar place, but before he could start to inwardly panic, he recognized the uniforms of Shinra medical staff and relaxed slightly. His whole body was throbbing with pain, but it was manageable, and much less than he had felt before. Rude pushed himself into a sitting position, looking around the room. A few nurses were bent over the bed next to his, and with a wave of relief he recognized Reno's bright hair.

"How are you feeling?" a nurse asked Rude, and he tore his eyes from his lover's prone form.

"How is he?" Rude asked her, nodding at Reno and ignoring the question.

"He'll recover before you do, that's for sure," the nurse said dryly. "We just had to sedate him to get him to stop fighting us. He's not fond of doctors, is he?"

"Never has been," Rude said with a touch of affection.

"Are you still in pain?" the nurse asked again.

Rude rolled his shoulders and winced. "No."

"You Turks are such liars," she said crossly, reaching over to a tray that held a hypodermic. "We've healed the most life-threatening injuries, but you'll have to take it easy for a couple weeks. No jobs until then, all right? I'll have the doctor contact your superior." She poked the needle into his arm and pressed down the plunger, and soon after Rude felt the pain lift and his vision grew hazy.

When he woke the second time, Tseng was standing by his bed, and one glance over showed Rude that Reno's bed was empty. The pain was even less this time, and he was able to sit up easily.

"You're awake," Tseng said, looking up from the papers he was holding.

"Where's Reno?"

"I sent him home. He's mostly recovered."

Rude tried to shake the feeling of fogginess that the painkillers had caused to settle in his head. Part of him was almost offended that Reno hadn't stayed to make sure he was recovering all right.

"You should be released soon as well," Tseng continued. "The doctor says to take it easy at home for a couple weeks. Most of your bones have set and knitted but any heavy work and they'll be damaged. We can spare you and Reno both around the office for now, especially since the threat is gone."

"Gone?"

Tseng's eyebrow shot up. "Reno blew up their command center when he went to save you. You don't remember?"

Rude frowned a little. "It's hazy."

"Well, it's thanks to Reno being an impulsive ass that two of my best Turks are still alive," Tseng said quietly. "And I still have to punish him for it, because he went against direct orders."

"Wouldn't be the first time," Rude pointed out. He knew Tseng wouldn't thank him for knocking him out of the way and getting tortured in his place, even if he wanted to. But he felt the gratitude in his words, laced in with the regret that he had to somehow reprimand Reno. Tseng was stoic enough that many forgot he had been through his fair share of torture and pain, first on the end of Sephiroth's sword, and again at the mercy of Kadaj and his gang.

"No, it wouldn't be the first time. But I still can't let it slide." Tseng made to leave, but turned back, his hand on the doorknob. "He was as close to openly mutinous as I've ever seen him when I told him we were falling back. I don't know what's going on with him now, but don't doubt his feelings for you."

Rude only leaned back in bed stiffly, his face expressionless as Tseng left the room quietly.