Evolution of a Turk

Summary and warnings are all listed before chapter one. They are, of course, MPREG and dirty words. Lots of dirty words. This fic is mostly a mix of the Turks off the clock, with mention of all their major encounters with Avalanche and whatnot throughout the game. I hope no one minds that I'm not making up a bunch of missions for them to kill all the time in between those in-game encounters. ;)

Disclaimer: The Final Fantasy VII characters, locations, etc. are all property of Square-Enix. I own nothing, I just do this for fun.

*************

In a small examination room, Reno sat on the bed, arms bent slightly and leaning on his palms, with a bored look on his face.
The door opened and closed a split second later. “Thanks for waiting,” was uttered.

Reno shrugged, hardly acknowledging the speaker's entrance.

“I understand how valuable your time is, given your occupation,” Dr. Harte continued. Clearly, the man knew a little something about the Turks.

“Just get this over with,” Reno told him.

“What do I need from you before we get to business...?” Dr. Harte seemed to be talking to himself, as he produced a disposable thermometer and unceremoniously stuck it in the redhead’s mouth.

He received a muffled, “How about a little fucking warning?” in response.

“Would you prefer I took your temperature somewhere else?”

Reno scowled, but said nothing more.

It was silent until the doctor somewhat absently commented, “I’ll need another urine sample.”

Reno’s look of frustration deepened.

“But we can do that on your way out.”

Reno rolled his eyes, and as the thermometer was finally taken from his mouth, said, “Oh fucking goodie.”

Dr. Harte chuckled, taking note of the redhead's temperature. “Well, if I knew you liked it so much...” He reached for something else. “Blood pressure,” he said, simply, moving to wrap the band around Reno’s arm.

“What the hell do you need all this piss for anyway?” Reno uncouthly asked, looking at his upper arm as it began to throb. “You don’t seem like a fetish kinda guy.”

“Quiet now,” was the only response. After a moment, Dr. Harte spoke up. “I’ll need your consent to tell one of my nurses about you. I’m going to need assistance with the delivery. And, of course, if you should ever need something and I’m not here for some reason...”

Reno glowered at the man, but kept quiet until the band had been removed from his arm. “Don’t you talk like that. Don’t you talk like I’m going that far.”

Dr. Harte shook his head. “I’m going to have to take your blood pressure again on your way out. I guess I’d better not aggravate you in the middle of that. Up, now. I need your weight.”

Weighed, told he was underweight, not so much for this point in pregnancy, but just in general, and back on the bed, Reno was still wearing the same bored, annoyed look and leaning on his arms once again. “What now?” he asked.

“I’m going to listen to the baby’s heart tones,” the doctor explained, pausing for a quick second, then insisting, “You’re going to lay back and lift your shirt and let me.”

“Trying to get my clothes off,” Reno clicked his tongue. “I want a chaperone.”

“Do you? Your friend can come in if you’d like.”

Rude. He was out in the waiting room. He’d driven Reno to his appointment, thanks to Elena’s pleading. She just had to know Reno was keeping up on everything like he should be while she was gone. She didn't quite trust Reno to do it on his own.

“Fuck no, I don‘t want him in here,” Reno said, with a snort, and zero hesitation.

“Then, shall we?”

Reno raised his arms in surrender, doing as he’d been instructed to a moment before, laying back and lifting his shirt to his ribs. He watched Dr. Harte intensely. Whatever device the doctor was going to use to listen to those supposed “heart tones” was fairly small, and Reno noted, both amused and grateful, had headphones. At least he wouldn’t have to...

“Do you want to hear?”

Reno simply shook his head. No, he didn’t want to hear, thank you very much.

“It‘s your choice.” Just as the man seemed ready to get started, there was a knock on the door. “Excuse me,” Dr. Harte told Reno, turning away from him.

“Take your time,” Reno assured him, eyes twinkling dangerously, as he put his shirt down and sat up.

Dr. Harte opened the door slightly, asking, “Can I help you?”

“I need to talk to him,” Rude said, simply.

Dr. Harte looked back at Reno, seeking his approval to let Rude in, and saying, “Come in,” when Reno gave a nod.

“What?” Reno asked his partner.

Rude stared straight forward, arms locked behind his back.

Understanding Rude's tight-lipped behavior, the doctor said, “I’ll be outside. We can finish up in a moment.”

Once he was out of the room, Reno asked, “What the hell, Rude?”

“Distress call.”

“What?”

“Yeah.”

“Elena?” Reno asked.

“Tseng.”

Neither man said anything for a moment. While it was unlikely, a distress call from Elena could be the result of the rookie being spooked on her first big mission. However, under no circumstances was a distress call from Tseng to be taken lightly.

“I gotta go,” Rude said.

“I’m going with you,” Reno insisted, standing up.

“The hell you are.”

“The hell I’m not. Try and stop me.”

“I don’t have time for this,” Rude muttered, annoyed, turning away from Reno and heading for the door.

“That’s right,” Reno agreed, a half-step behind him. “So, unless you think you can reason with me, you’re gonna have to stop me with force.”

“There is no reasoning with you,” Rude said, as if either he or Reno needed to be reminded of that. He exited the exam room.

Reno, of course, followed him. As the door closed behind him, he said, “Exactly.” He looked to Dr. Harte, who was very clearly expecting an explanation. “Sorry, doc, but I’m gonna have to take a rain-check. I‘ll piss in two cups for you next time.”

*************

Elena didn't so much as look back as the chopper landed dangerously close to her location. She was off in her own world. She sort of rocked, legs bent in the shape of an 'M,' fists pressed into the ground, not caring that she was soaked to the bone when Reno and Rude approached her. She'd be sore later; it was anybody's guess how long she'd been sitting there like that, or how long it had been raining on her. She shivered and choked on her sobs, and her suit was covered in blood and dirt kicked up from Rude's landing. What little shelter there was from the elements now that the temple was gone, Elena had surrendered to her boss, his still form laid out neatly before her.

Tseng looked dead...no, he looked worse than dead, if that was possible. He wasn't bleeding anymore. He wasn't breathing anymore.

Elena's teeth chattered and her eyes twitched, her body shaking from both the cold and her crying.

"What the hell happened?"

Elena didn't even look back.

"Elena," Reno called her name, sternly. "I asked you what happened."

"He just...I wasn't there when...he was...it had already happened when I found him. He was bleeding too much. I didn't know what to do, so I just...Cloud..."

"Cloud?" Reno asked, his fury threatening to boil over. "Cloud did this to him?"

Elena shook her head. "I don't know, really. He just...he just said Cloud had the Keystone."

Rude was leaning over Tseng by then, futilely checking his vitals. “No pulse. He’s not breathing.”

“It‘s my fault...” Elena began to sob once more. “I didn’t know what else to do!” she shouted, her tone full of regret and painful to the ears.

“What are you talking about? What did you do, Elena?” he asked, suspiciously.

Rude met his gaze and shook his head. Reno dropped it.

The redhead put a hand on Elena's shoulder, trying to still her swaying form, and gently murmured, "Come on. Let's get you both outta here."

Elena offered a weak nod and made her way to her feet. She seemed wobbly as Reno put an arm around her and led her to the helicopter.

Rude bent over and picked Tseng up, carefully carrying him in both arms, rather than slinging the man over his shoulder. He was heavier that way, but Rude would do the respectful thing. This was someone he deeply admired after all. He wouldn't go carrying him like a sack of feed.

It was a quiet flight from what used to be the Temple of the Ancients to Mideel, and the commute from the airbase back to the beach house the Turks were currently "renting" was equally silent.

Rude was driving, and speeding, as he often did. Reno was in the front passenger seat next to him, leaning back against the headrest and seeming deep in thought. Elena had taken the back, and was sitting deathly still, Tseng's head on her lap, as he was splayed across the seat. Her chin length hair was a damp, clumpy mess, her wet jacket and shirt lay crumpled on the floor at her feet, and she had Rude's jacket wrapped around her shoulders. She'd been so distraught she hadn't made the slightest objection to Reno peeling her then dripping blue blazer from her shivering body and unbuttoning and removing her blouse, leaving her in only her bra. He'd done it without even a hint of an ulterior motive, though, and Rude was quick to swoop in and offer his own jacket to preserve his colleague's modesty.

*************

Reno handled everything without a second thought. For the next two days, it seemed, he wasn't seen without his phone to his ear, and a pen in hand, nodding and mm hmm-ing as he jotted something down.

Reno's response to what had happened with Tseng was to constantly busy himself. He had claimed -- in a very stream-of-consciousness sort of way -- it was because he had been the Turks' second-in-command, and when you were second-in-command, it was just the way of things that you assumed the role of first-in-command, if something ever happened to your first-in-command. Reno almost seemed like himself for a moment, when he decided he needed to elaborate even further, and compared it all to the Miss Midgar oath: "Should the reigning Miss Midgar ever be unable to fulfill her duties as Miss Midgar, the first-runner-up will assume the title of Miss Midgar..."

Rude wondered how Reno seemed to know the entire speech, but he said nothing, he just savored the few moments of normalcy the present had given him.

Elena, who was typically a very co-dependent creature, an advocate of teamwork, and companionship, had all but isolated herself from Reno and Rude, emerging from her room only to shower and eat a little every now and then. For someone who seemed to be sleeping all the time, she was the portrait of exhaustion. Distraught or not, grieving or not, Elena was in sad, sad shape. She'd completely lost her zest for life, it seemed -- her charm, her curiosity, her eagerness, her undying willingness to learn from her mistakes, no matter how few or how many. Everything about her that Reno, Rude and Tseng had all been drawn to in the first place.

Rude played the silent observer. It was what he did best. Always the type to go unnoticed, a problem he'd solved always went away quietly, and was forgotten -- it never went out with a bang. He was like the aspirin you took for a bad headache, because it was there, and it was reliable. Wasn't flashy, and you didn't notice when it started working, rather, you just thought back on your headache later and wondered when it had gone away. At least, that was how the big man thought of himself. He didn't mind flying under the radar. Being noticed had never been a priority for him. Getting the job done, that was what mattered to him.

Rude had long since realized he was the kind of person whose absence was noticed more than his presence. Despite that, he decided it was time he stepped in and helped his friends sort everything out. Without them realizing how much thought he'd put into it, of course.

"How's it goin'?" he asked Reno, taking a seat next to him.

"Waiting for a call, then I might almost be done," Reno replied.

The two men looked back, hearing Elena's approach. She mumbled a "Don't mind me," as she shuffled by.

Rude smirked a little, earning him a questioning glance from Reno, as the redhead put his PHS to his ear, prepared to make another call. "You reschedule your doctor's appointment yet?" the bald man asked.

Elena's shuffling ceased and she looked back at Reno. "You canceled an appointment?"

Reno glared at Rude and mouthed, "Prick."

"Why, Reno?" Elena asked, sadly.

"I didn't cancel, I walked out in the middle of it."

Elena's eyes widened. They were bloodshot, and the circles beneath them were so dark that she looked like a raccoon, and a rabid one at that.

"Wait, wait. It's not what it sounded like."

"Then why don't you explain it to me slowly and let me decide-"

"There really ain't much more to it," Reno said, with a shrug.

Elena crossed her arms. "You need to prioritize, Reno," she said, insistently. "I think you can spare an hour every now and then to ensure that my little goddaughter is perfectly healthy."

Reno sniggered, and Rude did as well, though he was considerably more subdued. "Your who?" Reno asked, in utter disbelief. "Okay, okay, first off: what the hell has you so convinced I'm going through with this? Second: what is this goddaughter bullshit?"

"Who else do you have to appoint her godmother? As far as it being a girl, call it a hunch. Godmother's intuition."

"Ah, hell," the redhead mumbled, with a groan. "Rude, help me out."

"You can't avoid this, Reno. Canceling-" Elena began, only to be cut off by Reno.

"I told you, I didn't cancel, I walked out."

"That's even worse."

This was more like it, Rude mused. This was how Reno and Elena were supposed to act around each other.

"The distress call sort of interrupted things, alright? Wasn't a lot I could do, you know?" Reno pointed out.

Elena looked down at the floor, pulling her robe tightly around her chest. "Sorry."

Too good to be true, Rude thought to himself.

Before either Elena or Reno could say anything more, Reno's PHS rang. Rude and Elena watched as he had a very brief conversation with someone.

"Yeah, fine," he muttered into the phone, before quickly pressing the 'end' button and flipping it shut. He looked to his partners, wasting no time telling them, "We got a week to take Tseng home to Wutai. It's what he would’ve wanted."

"A week in Wutai?" Elena echoed.

Reno shook his head. "No. A week to get there, make arrangements for him, and get back to work. We're all still on-call for the whole week."

"That's bullshit," Rude said, showing more anger than he typically did.

"Yeah, well," Reno paused for a second, before stating, "that's Shin-Ra."

*************

A/N: I'm still haunted by the lameness of this chapter. I'm really sorry. Something just seems wrong about it; I'll rewrite it if and when I figure out what that something is. I still love reviews, though. And I know I've got the doc doing a lot of stuff a nurse would normally do, but that's because he's the only one who knows what's going on with Reno.