A/N: This story is a collaboration between the High Queen of Angst and myself. I wrote Tohru's part and the High Queen wrote Yuki's. Hope you enjoy!

Tohru sat on her bed, trying to find the will to get up. She had been up all night again. The nightmares kept coming back, no matter how many sleeping tablets she sighed and rubbed her eyes. There was no use dwelling on it. She had to get dressed for school and do the housework. Plus, she had to make dinner and go to work later...she couldn't be late

Tohru got up and went to the bathroom. She frowned at her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes had heavy, dark circles and her skin was washed out and pale. The sleepless nights had been taking their toll.

Tohru sighed. This wasn't healthy at all. She had never been bothered by nightmares in the past. They had only started after...after the accident.

Since then, Tohru couldn't remember the last time she had slept the whole night.

She had taken to wearing foundation, just to hide how much sleep she was losing.

Hana and Uo could tell there was something wrong with her no matter how many times she told them she was alright...

Tohru reached for the bottle that contained her foundation and found it empty. She remembered she had ran out of and was supposed to buy some from the drug store yesterday.

Tohru sighed. She would have to go without it brushed her teeth and got ready for school. It was going to be a bad day...

Tohru went downstairs and was surprised to find Yuki already up. It looked like he had been up for awhile.

"Good morning!" Tohru greeted happily.

"Good morning, Miss Honda!"

A warm smile immediately tugged at the corner of Yuki's lips in response to Tohru's chipper greeting, his amethyst gaze traveling away from his school work. He had been waiting a while for her to wake, and his pale cheeks flushed with this thought.

Yuki had needed to rouse early because he was in the process of studding for a particularly difficult exam. And...honestly...he had actually been done with the material for some time he couldn't bring himself to go and wake Tohru up, though he had desperately craved her company in the quiet of this morning.

Her greeting alone had suddenly brought the whole world into being...though the poor substitute of the sunrise had occurred long ago. It was only when she spoke that he truly felt the warmth of daylight. She had become his Tohru took her place next to Yuki, the two sat in a moment of peaceful silence. Yuki drank in Tohru's presence. Her light. Her warmth as she offered him another one of her beautiful smiles.

"How did you sleep, Miss Honda?" Yuki asked cordially, only to witness the briefest flicker cross Tohru's warm features...washed away as her smile became iconically sheepish.

"Well...I really didn't." She admitted before continuing. "I had a lot of studying to do, and I ended up working through most of the night."

"You could have asked me for help." Yuki murmured, his amethyst gaze now taking in her pale skin, lines of fatigue, and dark shadows under her azure eyes.

"...help..." Tohru whispered, her voice carrying a certain weight that Yuki thought didn't quite fit with who she was. "No. I couldn't, Yuki-kun." She finally responded, the warm happy smile now returning to her lips. "You already help me so much with my homework!"

Yuki's inquisitive gaze continued to take in the minute expressions that seemed to ebb and flow across Tohru's beautiful features. It was clear that there was something she didn't want to tell him. And that left Yuki feeling maybe he was reading too much into this. Maybe she was just tired after a long night of studying.

Yuki knew he'd had his fare share of those sleepless nights. Or maybe she was just too embarrassed to ask him for help again. He knew that she was often frustrated and felt quite guilty when she needed to take him away from his own studies in order to ask questions.

His eyes continued to watch her as she cheerfully clapped her hands together.'Okay!" Tohru chirped happily! 'Who's ready for some breakfast!" And with that she got up from her place next to watched as she made her way to the kitchen.

And while she thought he couldn't see, Yuki noticed her expression fall. Not in fatigue. Not in weariness. No...in something completely different. Something else entirely. And he knew that look. Intimately. Though he couldn't comprehend why it now shaped her was his expression.

The one that marred the features in the mirror every time he had managed to survive his confinement in his 'special room.'

When he had lived another day through Akito's horror, even though he wished he hadn't.

The one when he was standing so close... Teetering on the edge of the dark crevasse of his mind. When the nightmares became too real. Too painful. Just...too much. When, really, all he wanted to do...was...

"Tohru..."

His gentle voice murmured to her as she departed, sucking in his lower lip in apprehension as she turned towards him once more.