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Elena slipped silently through the hallways, performing her hourly check. She didn't really expect to find anyone. No one knew where Rufus was, and anyway, who would come all the way out here to look for anyone? But no matter how unlikely it was, she still checked. Turks who didn't--well, no one who didn't would make it into the Turks in the first place.

The hallway was clear, the front door still bolted firm as she had left it. There was no sign of anyone in the small kitchen, nor in the empty bedrooms upstairs. As she had expected, there was no one here but herself and Rufus. Even the other Turks were nowhere to be seen. Rufus had banished Reno and Rude a week ago, saying that Reno's fidgeting was getting on his nerves and he needed Rude to keep his partner out of trouble. That left Elena and Tseng to split the work of guarding the President.

She checked the back porch once more, and then returned to the massive sitting room where she had left Rufus.

He seemed not to have moved in the twenty minutes or so she had been gone. She tucked her gun away in its holster and checked his bandages. The black ichor of the stigma had not seeped through, and she breathed a quiet sigh of relief. The geostigma had strengthened in the last few weeks, soaking through bandages almost as fast as the Turks could replace them. She adjusted the blanket around his shoulders and seated herself next to the sofa, her back to the wall and her eyes on the door.

Beside her, Rufus shifted slightly. "I had no idea," he said, "that television programs had grown so abysmal in the wake of Meteor. Are mysteries about being stranded on some desert island truly the best they can manage?"

"Oh, no sir," Elena replied, deliberately cheerful. "There are also game shows about running into walls."

Rufus made a disbelieving noise.

"I think Reno, ah, liberated some old copies of Loveless," she offered.

"Thank you, no." Rufus shifted again. "Has Rude contacted you?"

"He said that he and Reno would be back tomorrow, so you won't be bored much longer."

Rufus smiled faintly. "I am not entirely sure that the alternative is an improvement."

"He hasn't blown this place up yet."

"'Yet' being the operative word."

There wasn't much Elena could say to that, so she busied herself pouring Rufus another glass of water and checking her weapon for the hundredth time that day. Lately whenever she was alone with the President, she found herself as nervous and jumpy as a rookie again, a fact which irritated her to no end. Part of it was the enforced idleness of their situation; even though work as a Turk frequently required bodyguard duty, there wasn't much to guard against out here in the ass-end of nowhere. Elena preferred activity to leisure.

"Elena?"

"Yes, sir?"

"What made you decide to stay with me after Meteor?"

The question surprised her. Rufus rarely--well, before now, never--asked questions about her personal decisions. Since the real answer was one she didn't even want to admit to herself, she took the next most obvious. "I'm a Turk, sir."

"Hmm," Rufus said, and Elena hoped he would drop the matter. Rufus had grown up surrounded by the Turks; their loyalty was a given. You didn't retire or transfer from the Turks, once you were there. It was a lot like SOLDIER that way.

"Anyway," she said quickly, to cover the lengthening silence, "what else would I do? There's not much call for former Turks, these days."

"I thought perhaps you might have a more personal reason for staying."

Elena bit her tongue to keep the jumbled words in her head from spilling out of her mouth, and kept her gaze fixed on the door as if she expected AVALANCHE to come bursting through at any moment.

"I'm sorry, Elena. That was rude of me."

"There's no need to apologize, sir." Fairly certain that she had her expression under control, she turned back to him, and realized with a start that he had been staring at her very intently.

His hand closed gently around her wrist, carefully avoiding the knife she kept sheathed in her sleeve, and tugged her closer to him. She leaned toward him, unable to bring herself to look away. The silence between them wore on, stretching thin and taut like a garrote wire, and Elena's pulse was beating fast and harsh in her ears. Rufus made no further move to encourage her, and Elena realized that he was waiting for her to make a decision.

More importantly, if she chose to walk away, he would let her.

Elena leaned forward to kiss him, her hair sliding free to brush against his forehead as she lowered her lips to his. He released her wrist, instead twining his fingers gently through hers. She shifted so she was perched on the edge of the couch, and felt his hand sliding up her back into her hair.

A loud crash echoed outside the room, and Elena sprang away from him, drawing her weapon and heading for the door. Before she got there, the door crashed open. She took aim.

"It's just me, yo, don't shoot!" Reno dived past her in a blur of crimson hair and dark-blue suit. Elena sighed and holstered her gun once again.

Rude made a more dignified entrance, Tseng a few moments behind him.

"I thought you weren't due back until tomorrow," Elena said to Reno.

"I got bored." He gave her a sweetly innocent smile she didn't trust for an instant.

"Rude?" Rufus inquired.

"Just don't send Reno back to Kalm for a couple months."

Elena caught a glimpse of Tseng's face and shifted so that she was no longer between him and Reno. She'd dearly love to hear the lecture Reno was going to get, but she didn't want to be literally in the middle of it.

Rufus sighed. "Did you get what I sent you for?"

"Yes, sir." Rude handed over a slim folder.

"Good. Sit down."

Elena reclaimed her previous chair before Reno could take it. Rufus caught her eye and inclined his head slightly. Elena repressed a smile.

She really might kill Reno later, just on principle.