A few weeks later, he found himself elbow deep in paperwork. And though occasionally he'd go off on a passionate tangent at the water cooler, he'd return to his desk and do the work since it'd been made clear that he really had no choice in the matter.

After a respectable stand off, Rufus himself had put an end to it. The deal was, he got to smoke his cigarettes in the office, just as long as there were no burn marks or ashes left on the work. But he had to the paperwork. Even Tseng had acquiesced to it, weary of Reno's complaining and he was sure he'd even seen Elena lighting up in her cubicle too.

All was good. Or as good as it could be. And then almost in an instant a shadow suddenly fell over his paperwork. He didn't even glance at the tiny opening of his cubicle. There was no reason she should be standing there blocking the light, but somehow he knew it was her. That and he smelled coffee and the unmistakable mark of too much chocolate drowning in too much whipped cream.

"Hey." She said and he glanced over then, finding she was dressed like usual. In next to nothing, even though it was raining outside.

"How did you even get in here?" He asked, eyeing her coffee and shaking his head. She only smiled and held up the id slung around her neck. He noticed with some shock that it said WRO.

"Used to be our old building before Reeve started getting all picky." She shrugged. "And I just happened to be around so…"

"Right." He said, turning back to the paperwork. "So you just happened to stop by too." She frowned.

"Things do sometimes just happen."

"With you? I don't think so Kisaragi." Reno leafed through the stack on his desk and Yuffie almost wanted to laugh at the depressing image Reno made sitting in his cubicle. "What are you doing here anyway?" he said, trying very hard at least to look like he was doing paperwork. Spying his pack of cigarettes at the edge of the desk he snatched it up like a life line and lit up in no time flat. Yuffie smiled tightly and took a few steps into his 'office.'

"I'm…" she let out a shuddered breath and could all but hide the disgust with what she was about to do, and Reno's constant attitude. "…apologizing." He stopped, spun around in his swivel chair to face her and raised his eyebrows.

"Really." He blew out a long string of smoke, nearly right into her face. "The Great Ninja Yuffie, is apologizing." Yuffie grit her teeth.

"Yeah."

"For what?" He took another drag and turned back to look at the stack on his desk. "I promise my heart's not broken or anything." Yuffie perched on the edge of his desk.

"The first step is admitting that your heart is broken Reno. Trust me, I have this affect on a lot of guys."

"Huh. That doesn't sound like apologizing, actually kinda sounds like complete bullshit."

"Wow. You're such an ass." She put the frilly coffee down on his desk. "But I am a ninja of infinite patience so-"

"Well I know that's bullshit. Ninja of infinite patience…you're kinda funny though."

"You know what? What don't you shut your mouth before I infinitely mess up your face?" She sighed, and tried not to get flustered.

"Was that the apology?" he asked, shaking some of the ashes off of his cigarette. Yuffie took a deep breath.

"No." Reno listened. "I just wanted to say that....here, drink this coffee." Reno looked at it. "It's part of the apology."

"No thanks."

"Seriously Reno? That was a ten gil coffee!"

"Drink it yourself then, you're the one who likes all that stuff in it."

"If you try it, I know you'll like it."

"No."

"But-"

"No."

"I'm trying to apologize damnit!"

"Apologize and annoy aren't the same thing, in case you didn't know." Yuffie pushed herself off of his desk.

"Do you make a habit out of being a giant asshole to people who are just trying to be nice!?" She roared, sending a few head turning in their individual cubicles. Reno was nonplussed.

"Do you make it a habit of running into people who clearly want to avoid you?" He said very obviously referring to the earlier incident with Vincent. Yuffie just glared at him, gave him one dainty middle finger and left.

Almost immediately he realized that he'd messed up. And for a few minutes he tried to proceed with his work. But he couldn't even fool himself with that bit, and so with more than a few eyes on him he left too, in pursuit. He found her at the doors of the courtyard, looking appropriately sulky. He guessed that maybe there really had been something going on between the two of them, which was really weird to think about.

Yuffie didn't seem like the type to like Vincent's type, but what did he know?

"I'm sorry, alright?" he said watching her stare out of the glass doors. "I didn't mean to, you know…"

"I broke the coffee machine." She said suddenly, and he stopped. "I was here with Reeve and I went to go get coffee, and I broke it." She looked over her shoulder. "I'm kind of clumsy sometimes." Then she turned back to the window.

"Really. I didn't notice."

"That's how I knew you'd come out for coffee. And…" she sighed. "I'm sorry about the whole Vincent thing. I don't know I why I thought that would work, he's like a freakin' brick wall…" she paused. "And if it means anything, I didn't really mean to use you, I totally wanted to just get into your pants. "

"Yeah?" Reno wondered what kind of man he was, when something like that actually made him feel a little better. Yuffie gave him a strange look.

"Yeah, but then…" she smiled.

"Then what?"

"You were staring at Candy's boobs like, the whole night. And I figured maybe I had…I don't know, bitten off more than I could chew?" She crossed her arms over herself. "I invited her in the first place because I'm sure you wouldn't even have gone if I hadn't." Reno wasn't sure she was wrong about that. "I mean it's not your fault you can't appreciate a graceful, crafty ninja when you see one, so I thought that would get the ball rolling. But you just kept staring at her boobs and I figured I might as well get what I could out of the bet." She shrugged. "And it was kind of fun, I'm so bored lately."

Reno didn't know if he should be insulted or not, but he only shrugged, and went to the doors to look at the rain.

"Yeah well, join the club." She turned to look out of the doors with him.

"Is it weird that I almost miss fighting for the planet?" He nodded.

"Only if it's weird that I'd give just about anything to set fire to my desk, and start doing the bloody kind of work again." Yuffie sighed.

"Turks." She smiled. "Hey, wanna go outside?" He looked at the rain.

"Sure."

Once outside in the courtyard, they stood and watched the rain silently. Pulling the wet hair out of her eyes, Yuffie turned to Reno.

"Can you smoke in the rain?" Reno shrugged, red hair nearly plastered to his head.

"Never tried."

"Really? Well can we try now?" she asked, eyes dark and sparkling.

"We? Are you still trying to-"

"Please?" And there it was again, that almost disgusting cuteness. He sighed.

"I'm not giving you a cigarette." He pulled one seemingly out of nowhere and lit it. "But we can share this one. Here, first drag." He held it out between his fingers, and she smiled and took it. Yuffie watched the cherry as she held it in her own hands, glanced at Reno who was kind of unnerving her with how intensely he was watching, and then she took her first long drag.

"Ifrit, don't inhale the whole damn thing." He said with a bit of a laugh. "You'll die on number one if you keep that up." Yuffie took it back into her fingers and coughed all the smoke out. Reno took the cigarette back and promptly took a drag while she continued to cough her lungs out all over the wet ground.

"Gawd." Cough. "That…" Cough. "That's awful." Cough. "Why did you…" Cough. "Let me do that?" Cough.

"You wanted to." He said as Yuffie started to regain herself again.

"I want a lot of things." She said looking out across the courtyard again. "Doesn't mean I can have them. Hey, Ren-" His mouth descended on hers through a cloud of smoke and she was so shocked she couldn't close her eyes, which was fine because his were open too. And when she pulled away and started coughing again he actually smiled. Recovering faster this time, she straightened and snatched the cigarette from his hand.

"Reno-"

"You're my type just as much as I'm your type, so what does it matter?" He cradled one of her damp cheeks into his hand, and she actually blushed. And in one of those crazy moments of instinct, he saw right through her. "Have you…ever been kissed before?" Her eyes went as wide as saucers, and the answer was right there.

"I…" Reno shook his head, smiling. So that was no, and it was pretty reasonable to assume none of the rest had happened either. She sputtered in an explanation that wouldn't come, but Reno stopped her.

"We can fix that, you know." He said and she blinked.

"I have though…" she said sulkily, lips quivering and warm for him when he broke the barrier for real, and pressed his lips to hers without all that smoke between them. It was sweet and none of what either of them thought they'd end up with, but with her hands tight on his tie and his hands hot against her cheeks, it wasn't so bad. And when he pulled away, his cigarette was shaking in her fingers.

"I gotta go back to work." He said, taking the wet, useless cigarette back and throwing to the ground.

"Oh." She said with all the hints of immediate attachment he knew too well in girls who were untouched. But then she smiled. "Wanna have coffee later then?" He knew that with her it was way too early to be relieved, but he kind of was and his life was wide open so he figured…

"Why not." And it made him if wonder if maybe she had done some kind of strange voodoo on him. But he didn't think too hard on it.

It was different and new, and broke the monotony like she'd claimed to have broken his heart. He'd known as she'd slunk over to him in the bar that night that he'd be getting none of what he bargained for. So it wasn't so much of a surprise that he'd ended up with more.

Author's note : The End. So, different from how I normally do things, here's a sorta kinda happy ending. XD Though I suppose it's not if you were really rooting for the hotsex (so was I) but as I wrote this, it just didn't seem the right direction. I hope you enjoyed it regardless, because I enjoyed writing it.