Chapter 4

--Next Morning--

Both Tala and Bryan had been walking down the hall leisurely until they'd heard a loud ringing sound coming from the kitchen. Bryan was the first there, running down the stairs, watching Vera fuming and cursing so badly he hadn't heard such bad language since Boris when Tala lost the tournament. "What's that sound?!"

"The damn fire alarm!" She yelled, putting her hands to her face.

"So there's a fire?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Do you see a fire?!" She asked irritably, raising her face from her hands and glaring furiously.

"So why is it ringing?"

"Because it's like living with a psychiatric patient! It's on edge all the time. All you have to do is walk past it and it'll start screaming at you. All I did was burn a piece of toast! A damn piece of toast!"

Tala rolled his eyes at the extent at which she was raising her voice pointlessly, "So just switch it off!" he shouted back.

"I can't! I need to get up there to switch it off but I'm too short even if I stand on the chair," she indicated to the chair she'd dragged from the table to just beneath the alarm, "so I went to get the ladder from the storeroom but its hanging on the wall which is stupid because if I could reach that height I wouldn't need the damn thing in the first place!"

By the time Vera had stopped her rant the annoying ear-piercing scream of the alarm had finally ceased. Looking back and up, she saw Bryan breaking apart the alarm with a kitchen knife. When he got down he placed all the pieces of the broken alarm and the knife down onto the counter, leaving just two wires sticking out of the ceiling. "Problem solved." He murmured to himself with a sigh. He smirked at the dumbfounded look on her face when he turned to her, placing a hand on the small of her back as he walked past her again, "Feeling better?" he asked.

"A lot…thank you." She sighed, ramming her hands against the kitchen counter, "I keep telling Kai to fix that thing. It doesn't need to be that sensitive when I'm the one that's cooking; when he's cooking then yes, the most sensitive the better but I'm the one that's cooking now and he just insists on not fixing it. I should've just bugged him until he did it."

"Well you can relax now; it's not going to bother you and your cooking again." Bryan picked up a tiny broken piece and showed it to her, "See? It's not going to be screaming like that again."

"I know." She murmured quietly. She stood up straight, taking a deep breath before taking a look around the kitchen, "Right; got to finish breakfast." She continued to tell herself softly.

Tala went over to her and caught her hand as she began to continue making their breakfast, "You don't need to make us breakfast everyday. Haven't you stressed yourself out enough this morning?"

"No, it's fine; cooking will calm me down." She insisted, pulling out of his grip and continuing her work. The two males sat at the table, Tala was pretending to read the newspaper; it had fallen through the mailbox just as he'd been coming down the stairs. He couldn't quite help but look up whenever the young girl would start cursing or sighing when something went wrong. Bryan had his arms crossed on the table and just rested his head on them, his head turned to the side so that he could watch her the whole time. She certainly was uptight today. Lack of sleep, he assumed; though he couldn't quite recall ever being this uptight whenever he lacked sleep but he assumed that he just wasn't used to receiving more than he needed. Receiving any at all certainly was a privilege though, so he wasn't complaining, not even to himself.

Breakfast was prepared and set in front of them within the next twenty-five minutes. Both men were thankful for this as they were starving but the girl left without another word about a minute after she had cleaned up all the pots and pans. "She's so uptight today." Bryan murmured to his friend; to some point hoping to make conversation, though sadly at his new friend's expense.

"Yeah," Tala nodded, "What do you think it is?"

"Not enough sleep maybe."

"You think so?"

Bryan shrugged slightly, still poking the fork through the remainder of his food; Vera really was stressed out as she'd given him a lot more food than she knew he would eat. "She was still awake at four this morning."

The redhead placed his fork down onto his plate, raising an eyebrow, "And how do you know that?"

He shrugged again, "I needed a drink." He lied; Tala wouldn't understand the meaning of feeling too heated up to lie in bed for any longer. "She went to bed a few minutes after I came down here but I wouldn't know when she went to sleep. Maybe she's not used to getting only a few hours of sleep." He heard Tala scoff quietly, causing Bryan to look up at him blankly, "You know…she's not as bad as you make her out to be."

"Kai trusts her too much and that's how people get hurt."

"But she's not like that, she's nice and caring and it's not like there's any reason to distrust her. Kai has known her for a long time…he wouldn't leave us with her if she wasn't reliable."

"Wouldn't he?" Tala asked, raising an eyebrow. "Face the facts Bryan; Kai ditched us. We've been his friends for years, a lot longer than those Bladebreakers and he left us here to stay with some girl and for him to go with children."

"Kai wanted to be with his teammates, there's nothing wrong with that." Why Bryan was trying to defend someone he was mad at was beyond him but he couldn't help himself; defending one of his friends had sort of become second nature as long as he wasn't defending them from his own criticism. "It's not like he's entitled to take care of us…"

"You're right…" Tala smirked, standing up and leaving the room.

Fantastic. Bryan had now officially pissed off all his friends. Despite anything that ever stood in Bryan's way, like lack of emotions, he was still always there for Tala and the redhead was right, Kai had in fact come up short a lot of those times but he always made up for it in the end. Maybe to Bryan things just seemed that way because he no longer wanted to expect much from people. How much could he really expect from anyone? Kai really wasn't entitled to take care of him but he gave him a warm house and bed to stay in, someone to make him nice hot meals and to treat him right and that was more than he really felt like he deserved.

He finished up his breakfast and decided that since he had little left to do, having finished almost all the books they'd bought the day before, he washed the dishes to save the girl some trouble. After all, how difficult could it really be to clean two plates and some cutlery? Vera had already done everything else. He walked back upstairs, taking his sweet time with everything he did. He took a long hot shower, changed into some warm clothing and went out for an earlier walk. As far as he knew Vera would only work till two in the afternoon today and so far too early to ever meet up with her when he was out for his afternoon walk. Memories of his days in that hospital continued to consume him.

--Flashback--

Bryan's face creased in pain as he slowly drifted back into a state of blurred consciousness. The sharp, cold breeze of the air from oxygen mask blowing against his face alerted him to the fact that he was still lying in a hospital bed. This fact was later reinforced by the agonizing pain in his skull. He groaned softly, his head lolling to the side as he slowly opened his eyes to a dull room. Through his half lidded eyes and hazy vision, he was able to make out a mess of honey-blonde hair resting against the edge of his bed next to his body.


"Ver…" he mumbled out weakly, his voice hoarse and muffled by the oxygen mask pressed over his nose and mouth. It was more of a moan than a word, and yet the girl lifted her head off the mattress abruptly, instantly woken by the sound of the boy's voice. She felt Bryan's weak hand flex slightly in her own and she sat up with a start, wide awake and alert.


"Bryan!" Vera felt tears sting at her eyes as she gripped the hand tightly with both of her own and leant eagerly over the bed. Bryan raised his left hand awkwardly, the drip in his elbow restricting his movements, and slipped the oxygen mask from his face, enabling himself to talk properly.


"Vera…"


"Ssh, don't talk." She insisted gently as she insistently placed the oxygen mask back over Bryan's face. No words came to her as she stood over the bed, staring silently at Bryan's resting form. His eyes had drifted closed again, but his head leant into Vera's hand, welcoming her warm touch. There was little else he could do; he was freezing, he needed warmth and she was providing, he was weak and she was willing to be supportive. Vera sat down on the edge of the bed and leant back so she was basically lying beside Bryan; arm wrapped around his shoulders. Bryan moved as much as his weak body would allow him so he was resting against her shoulder. Vera didn't care whether or not she was permitted to do this, but she couldn't go another second without reaching out to him.


"Vera," Bryan said weakly and once again slipped the oxygen mask from his face. He opened his eyes and looked up at the teenage blonde. "You…stayed here? All night?"


Vera nodded, still stroking Bryan's hair comfortingly. "Of course I did. I wouldn't leave you all alone." She leant down and kissed his forehead. She didn't care about whether he felt comfortable with displays of affection or not but it was just an automatic gesture. He didn't seem to be bothered by it this time.


"Th-thank you."

--End Flashback--

All he remembered was being thankful for that warmth and support that she was providing, even for a short time. Those days in the hospital were the most painful physically. Mentally and emotionally was no better but that little bit that she gave him made things better. When his other teammates were around it was still good for him but it didn't make all that much of a difference. After all, he had been the one that changed, Tala and Kai had remained the same and so would answer him the same way regardless of the way he acted towards them; whether it was the Bryan from the Abbey or the one that had even yet to be formed now. She acted like herself, she was a breath of fresh air because she was different. She was different; not from society but from what he was used to.

She was even kind and giving when it came to the other things. Little things. When you're stuck in a hospital bed with no real place to move to then you sort of start to appreciate the littler things that were available to you in the past. Lucky for him, he wasn't used to many great things but those things that he did learn to love was something he truly missed when lying around and bored.

--Flashback--

There was a faint and quiet knock on his hospital room door. He was wondering if he'd heard correctly. It was only 7:30am and his ears were still ringing. Even passing off the sound to being in his head, the door opened a bit and Vera's head popped inside. She smiled softly upon seeing him still awake, "Hey, nurse told me you woke up early."

"Yeah." He whispered hoarsely, closing his tired eyes momentarily. "What are you doing here so early?"

She held up a plastic bag to him before setting it on the nightstand, "I brought you some tea; Kai said he'd tried to get you some from the machine down the hall but it didn't taste all that good."

Bryan smirked, eyes closed again. "That's' sweet," He mumbled, still exhausted, "but you really didn't need to come by so early."

"We both seemingly didn't feel like sleeping." She smiled. "So are you feeling any better, Bryan?" Vera asked politely as she pulled a chair up to the side of the bed.

"I am actually," He'd replied with a weak smile. "It's amazing how much better you feel once that damn anesthetic starts to get out of your system."

"Yeah that stuff's pretty nasty," Vera hummed in agreement and sat back. "I had my wisdom teeth surgically removed when I was a kid and that bloody anesthetic messed me up so much more than the surgery itself did."

"At least it's almost out and I'll never need it again."

"Hopefully."

"I guess at this point I'm sort of desperate to get this hospital stay over with." He'd cut back on the temptation to complain but it was slowly coming undone.

"Aww, are you not enjoying being stuck in bed and having nurses give you your icky green jelly lunch and help you walk to the bathroom?" She asked sarcastically, watching the dismay further take over his features.

"Not at all." He grumbled, groaning and tugging the sheets higher up his body.

She smiled, and in her mind she was pitying the poor thing for being put into this position in the first place. "Well look at you; for the first time ever I actually think you're blushing." Her sentence had just made him groan louder, almost hurting the back of his throat, and burying himself deeper beneath the sheets. "The closer you get to white sheets the more that red on your face shows, sweetheart." She laughed, getting up and sitting on the bed. She waited till his face peeked out from beneath the sheets again before placing a peck on his cheek. "Get some rest. I'm off to work. I didn't give Tala and Kai breakfast this morning; it'd be an incentive for Kai to get out of the house and come and see you." She jumped off the bed and walked over to the door, "Make sure you rest or else you'll be in here for a lot longer and no one wants that."

--End Flashback--

He had to admit that she sort of embarrassed him at times but he just thought that it was better to feel something than nothing at all. While embarrassment and humiliation was never something he wanted to feel, mild jokes that she made were definitely ones he chose over the millions of forms of humiliation that Boris had provided him with over the years. He couldn't quite remember them all and he knew he didn't want to remember them, especially now that he had emotions but he knew there was something different about her again. He wasn't even quite sure what made her so different but he assumed that it was that she was the first person he was socially related to that wasn't a past member of the Abbey.

Looking up he'd realized that he'd arrived. Basically his feet had just walked him over to her store without his mind actually factoring in exactly it was that he was doing. He stepped inside; not needing to hesitate like he did the other day. He should've rethought that though as the girl at the counter, filing her nails at that, was certainly not Vera. Looking around; he certainly was in the right place, if there actually was another place like this, it certainly wasn't for a couple of miles. The woman at the counter asked him in quite polite Russian if she could help him with something but at the time his Russian entirely failed him and spoke in English, "I was just looking for Vera."

"She's with a client right now. You can wait for her if you like." Bryan nodded and turned to the chair on the far side of the room, sitting down. The girl took a good look at him, resting her chin in her hand and staring at him for a while, "So are you a friend of hers or something?" she asked, curious.

"Sort of." Bryan answered bluntly.

"Sort of?" She asked, raising her eyebrow at him and then her mouth opening in an 'o', "Oh so you two are more than friends." She smiled wider with realization.

"No!" Bryan shook his head hurriedly, a little alarmed, even at the idea, "No. Nothing like that."

"Then what is it?"

"I just live with her."

She nodded, "You're one of those guys she's living with now then, huh? The ones that landlord guy dumped her with? She told me about the lot of you…Now, are you the nice one or the stubborn annoying one?"

She was a tad blunt in her speech. Bryan thought that maybe she was too blunt and it sounded like Vera hadn't said very pleasant things about them to this girl. "I'm hoping I'm the nice one."

"He is the nice one." Vera insisted from the entrance to the backroom, "Thanks for keeping him company, Dess." She turned to the woman and then to male, "Come on back, Bryan."

He hadn't ever been more glad to get out of some place. Not even the Abbey had that much want. The other girl's dark-brown penetrative glare had practically burnt a hole right through whatever self-esteem he'd seemingly had left since he'd left home that morning.

"So what brings you by this time?" She asked curiously, shutting the door of the office behind him.

"This is bugging you now, right?" He asked hesitantly, turning back to leave.

"No, don't be ridiculous. It's just my bad mood today, that's all; I didn't mean to sound irritated that you've passed by." She pulled him back into the room; taking off his jacket as she did last time and put it by the fire.

Bryan sat down in a chair as she had done, nodding a bit, "That's why I passed by. You were stressed out this morning so I thought I'd see what happened."

"That's sweet but then I'm afraid you've come this far all for nothing. I'm perfectly fine and nothing's happened."

Bryan rolled his eyes, sitting back in the chair and crossing his arms tightly against his chest, "And here I thought only I was allowed to use that sentence and be unsure of what I was saying."

"I'm sorry but really, I'm fine. It's just that stupid time of the month and I get a bit fussy sometimes."

"Time of the month?" Bryan asked confusedly, not knowing what she was talking about at all.

She turned a bit red at his question and so he assumed it was something he shouldn't have asked about. "Just…work it out in your head, four days in a whole month I'll get a bit grumpy and when that happens; you duck, run and hide in your room until those four days are up. You probably don't need to know anymore until…well you get a girlfriend or get married."

Bryan turned a little red in the face, brushing his heated cheek against his shrugging shoulder, "I think I should be sorry I asked but you'll be okay…right?"

"Yeah of course; I'll go have a soak in the hot tub at Kai's place after work and I'll be all better. Don't worry about it; I'm sorry you came all the way down here for nothing."

"It wasn't for nothing; I wanted to walk around a bit anyway. I thought you were going to stay home today though; the weather was terrible, we were almost snowed in at home."

"Yeah but I had a few appointments to get through so I thought I'd come in anyway but I'll take tomorrow off, same with Dessa." She watched him nod a little and continue staring at the floor; she got up and went to the counter to make him a cup of tea, "So how are things at home with Tala and stuff?" she glanced over her shoulder and watched him shrug. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"He really doesn't like you, you know?"

Vera laughed softly, handing him the cup of tea, "Well I don't like him either so we're even."

"I've been surrounded by so much hate all my life; I can't stand more of it."

"I don't hate him, Bryan. I just dislike a lot of things about him, the way he thinks for starters but he's got a reason for it, I'm sure of that and maybe some day I'll understand the reason but till then, I really can't be bothered to be all that nice to him." She reached a hand out to him, lifting his head by his chin and not caring about whether or not it hurt, "Listen to me, okay? I think you and I are friends, but you can't forget about Tala. You've got to remember that even though you're the one who's suffered the most within the past few weeks he may be going through some things too. Talk to him, it's difficult right now but maybe he needs to be talked to as much as you need to."

"And what am I supposed to say?"

"Well I don't know that one! Just talk to him about whatever you want to talk about. Just don't bring me in on the subject because clearly you'd be assured an argument." Her words caused him to turn silent again and now she was beginning to get mad at herself for intimidating him like this, "Go home, try to relax and talk to him a little. I think you two really should clear the air between you."

The young Russian male sighed softly, wiping at his eyes tiredly, "I can't go there and pretend I know how I'm feeling when I'm talking to him."

"Then don't. Just go there and not know how you feel, go there and just react to everything in the first way that comes to mind. It's better than avoiding it." She stood up and took the mug from him, placing it on the desk before picking up his jacket and dragging him over to the door, "Go on, get home and sort this out. I'm not going to have you to ruin a perfectly good friendship just because he's stubborn and silent and you're ashamed of not knowing how you feel."

"No need to push." Bryan protested, speeding up so her hand would stop pressing against his back till he was out the door.

"At least I didn't push you out the door without your jacket." Vera smirked, "Good luck. I'll be home in a few hours."

"Oh joy." Bryan sighed, tightening the jacket tighter to his body before stepping out of the store. He'd never been thrown out of a place before.

Vera continued to smile, crossing her arms and watching him walk down the street, "Argument with your boyfriend?" she heard Dessa ask at the back of the room. The comment made her smile further, then turn back to her.

"He's not my boyfriend for starters." Vera began, walking over to her before sitting up on the counter, "And no, it wasn't an argument; just my way of trying to bring up some of his self-confidence and motivate him to work things out with a friend of his."

The brunette giggled childishly, falling back onto the stool behind the counter, "It's so clearly working." She retorted sarcastically.

While Vera and Dessa continued to bicker over the blonde's way of doing things Bryan was on his way home; speeding up to be able to get home before he caught a cold. His body began to freeze and so he was quite glad when he'd managed to get into the warm house. He tossed his jacket by a heater and went around looking for his redheaded friend. It wasn't all that difficult, Tala was curled up on the far end of the sofa, a large soft blanket draped over him while he lay there and watched TV.

"Tal?" Bryan started hesitantly, sitting on the other end of the sofa.

"Yeah, Bry?"

"Can we talk?"

Tala sighed softly, "Sure." He shut off the TV and turned to lie on his back, tilting his bent legs to the side to be able to look at his friend, "What about?"

"Why are you so quiet lately? You never used to talk much but we always talked more than this…"

"Bryan," Tala exhaled again, speaking in an almost reprimanding tone, "you're a lot more sensitive now and…"

"Yeah but…"

"Let me finish." Tala scolded, glaring and silencing his friend before starting again, "You're a lot more sensitive now and I don't want to say something that might hurt you. I also know that you don't have all that many memories right now; I don't know what you want to know and what you don't and so I don't want to accidentally say something that you'd much rather not know."

"Is it safe for me to talk now?" Bryan asked once Tala paused for too long. The redhead gave him the okay and Bryan began his side of the story, "I'm going to get all my memories back eventually, and there's no stopping them. If you asked about me just a little more often you'd know that memories already began cropping up."

"And?" Tala asked desperately, sitting up quickly.

"And I'm okay so far!"

Tala crawled closer, "I want to be able to help, Bryan. Really. If things were to remain the same or even get worse, I want to be able to help."

Bryan nodded hurriedly, already feeling some sort of relief in having heard that his friend did indeed care about him, "And I want your help. I'm sick and tired of not being able to talk to you."

"Maybe we're just afraid of involuntarily hurting each other."

"We were never afraid of it before…" Bryan admitted softly, turning his body to the side to be able to look at his friend better.

Tala nodded and relaxed against the sofa like his friend did, "I guess it was because you didn't have emotions, I didn't take things so hard and in the Abbey, how could we get hurt anymore than we already did? Back then hurting each other because of something said between us was nothing in comparison to what we used to feel everyday."

"Maybe that really is why we stopped talking." Bryan looked at the saddening look on his best friend's face before Bryan rubbed his temples in a careful motion, "We need to be able to work things out."

"Yeah, we do."

A/N: Another chapter. At least last chapter I got three reviews, relatively better so thanks to those who gave honest feedback. Sorry I haven't been able to answer everyone who reviews my writing lately; I have resits starting Monday and I'm nervous. Thanks everyone who read this far! Please leave reviews; they make me happy!