There's something else I meant to tell you

Jun lay there in front of me, barely breathing underneath the silvery blanket. I slipped my hand underneath it to hold hers. Even through our gloves, she still felt as cold as ice, although I was starting to see a faint hint of color returning to her cheeks.

How many times had I gone through this before? Whenever something happened to Jun, I was worried out of my mind, wondering if she would pull through, wondering if she would fully recover, wondering…

Wondering if I should have told her about my feelings.

This certainly wasn't the first occasion that I had had this dilemma. And I already felt the old stirrings of the now-familiar answer: Jun was going to be fine, so there was no need to tell her. No need for regrets.

But what if next time, Jun wasn't so lucky? Did I want her to die thinking that she was alone, and unloved?

But she wasn't going to die. She was going to recover.

Briefly, I wondered whether Jun had these same feelings when I was injured. Did she sit with me, holding my hand, silently willing me to awaken and tell her that everything was going to be okay?

Deep inside, I knew that she did.

Nearly every part of me ached to tell her how I felt; to acknowledge what I had tried to bury for so long. Yet that crucial part of me always held back. It was the core of me: the part of me that defined who and what I was: that supposedly noble part of me that wanted to keep Jun from harm.

And if I were truly honest with myself, I knew that it wasn't just Galactor I wanted to protect Jun from.

I wanted to protect her from myself.

I knew that when duty called, I could just as easily be the one who was injured, or killed. Would I be able to accept death, knowing that Jun would be hurt when I was gone? Would I hesitate to perform my duty, placing myself mortal peril, if I knew that I was sacrificing not just myself, but Jun too?

Even now, I knew that there were no easy solutions. I couldn't find the answers to my questions without being in those situations, and I couldn't be in those situations if Jun and I had never…

She gasped quietly, taking in a deeper breath of air, her chest rising and falling with the effort. Her hand felt warmer now, but my heart was still cold.

"Jun…" I said, gently touching her cheek with my free hand. "It's okay. You're on the God Phoenix. Everything's going to be fine."

She murmured softly, but I don't think she had actually heard me. She was still in some level of sub-consciousness; not completely awake yet.

I should tell her now, when she wasn't completely aware of what was going on. I could confess my feelings without her hearing me, yet still assuage my guilty conscience. And in the past couple of months, that guilty conscience had been pricking me sorely. Ever since…

I tried to shake the memory from my head, but I couldn't…

88888

It was New Year's Eve, and everyone had gathered at Dr. Nambu's home to celebrate. We hadn't had much of a Christmas, as Galactor had decided to give out presents full of poison gas to unsuspecting children, and we had had to chase Katse down, destroying his base and eliminating the threat. Unfortunately, we had not discovered what Galactor was up to until after a number of families had died. Jun had been especially hard hit by this tragedy, and it had nearly torn me apart when I had come upon her weeping over the body of a young toddler.

To make up for it, and to try to cheer everyone up, Hakase had invited everyone to his estate to celebrate the New Year. Only Jinpei was the least bit excited, while the rest of us morosely sat on the sofa, watching the ball drop over Times Square in New Jork on the television broadcasts. Of course, that was actually three hours before our midnight on the West Coast, and none of us were excited at the prospect of spending that time in the stilted silence that had been prevalent since the evening had begun.

Somehow, Joe had managed to slip out early on, taking Ryu with him, and Jinpei fell asleep in front of the TV around eleven o'clock. Dr. Nambu had just sighed, and retired to bed at eleven-thirty, unable to bear witness to the strain and depression that was pulling us apart.

The problem was, it didn't feel like a new year: it felt like the old year was starting again, and the past year had had too much death and defeat for us to bear the first time. I had lost my father that year, although truth be told, I hadn't even known he was alive until moments before his death. I had thought at the time that it was the worst pain I could experience. It was too much to bear, but somehow, Jun had gotten me through it. I had gone wild with rage in the weeks following my father's death, and it had only been her steady influence that had calmed me down, and made me see what I had to live for.

Jun had known… she had known that I wished that I had died along with my father. I had never told anyone, but somehow she had known, and been able to help me.

We had spent hours in conversation, talking about our lives, our childhoods, and our fight… not just the war with Galactor, but our fight to retain a semblance of normalcy in our lives. We had lost so much, and yet Jun never gave up that bright-eyed optimism that one day everything would be resolved and we would be able to live our lives as free as anyone else; no longer constant slaves to the threat of terrorism and war.

I would never have recovered from the emotional trauma of my father's death without Jun.

She looked at me now, her tired, sad eyes glimmering with tears in the flicking light emitting from the television set.

Jun's optimism had gone.

"I know…" I said, putting my arm around her and drawing her head down to my shoulder. My other arm reached around to stroke her hair, and soon I felt her silent tears soaking through my shirt. After a few minutes she spoke, her words a mere whisper in the cold silence.

"I can't do it anymore, Ken…"

"You don't know how many times I've felt that way." I revealed, astonished at what I was saying. I hadn't even known myself, until that moment, how close I had occasionally come to abandoning the team. But when I said the words, I knew them to be the truth.

"But, Ken, I can't bear it any more… those children…"

She looked up at me with tearstained cheeks, her sorrow brimming from her eyes.

"How do you deal with these feelings, Ken?"

Again, I spoke from the heart, without thinking.

"I have you to get me through it." I whispered.

She looked up at me then, her eyes searching my face. I don't know if she found what she was looking for, because at that moment, Hakase's old grandfather clock began to strike midnight.

"Happy New Year, Jun." I said, leaning down to brush my mouth against hers.

Her lips parted slightly in surprise, but they were soft, and welcoming. For an instant, the full potential of what we had between us was exposed to my mind, and I saw the two of us together, living lives free of war and suffering.

The last stroke of midnight sounded, and we pulled apart, hardly daring to breathe, or acknowledge what had just happened between us.

I stared into her beautiful emerald eyes, and she smiled.

"Happy New Year, Ken." she said, returning her head to my shoulder. I leaned my head onto hers, and closed my eyes, drifting off to sleep…

88888

I should have told her then.

I knew it back then, and I knew it even more now. It was the only time I had ever seriously contemplated revealing my feelings. But since that night, I had become more and more capable of hiding my emotions, and while Jun had recovered from her temporary bout of depression, my burden of guilt had only increased.

My sense of remorse overwhelmed me, and I squeezed Jun's hand under the blanket.

I had to speak now, before she was fully aware that what she was hearing was real. It was the only way I would be able to confess…

"Ken…"

Her voice was weak, but her eyes opened, and Jun looked at me.

"You made it…" she smiled.

"You almost didn't." I said, my throat nearly choking as I spoke. But I managed to hold it together, and maintained a professional composure.

Of course, a professional composure didn't include holding hands with my third. I quickly let go, slipping my glove out from under the blanket.

A pained expression crossed her face, and immediately I longed to take her into my arms.

But if I did that, there would be no stopping the emotional flood that was bound to come pouring forth. I had to hold back.

So I sat there, with the soul of a stone, and let my emotional walls come crashing down around me.

"Tired…" Jun whispered, closing her eyes and falling asleep.

Another opportunity lost.