Special credit and thanks goes to Vilya-chan on this one for her superb beta-work (Griff is my usual betaer, and this piece wouldn't be half of what it is without her excellent eye, but I figured since it was her birthday coming up, this time around I'd spare her from exasperating herself with my trivial errors!). She's done a stellar job, so full marks to her!

Happy Birthday, Griff-chan! Even though Phasis started as your Christmas present, I suppose it's partially pulling double-duty. But don't worry, I'll have it done before next Christmas.

It was Jade's idea.

"We've defeated three of the six original sentiences," the colonel stated, standing at ease with his hands safely within their usual pockets. "This may be a good time to take a bit of a break."

"We have been going effectively without rest since the sentiences began appearing," Natalia agreed, nodding her head slightly, sending her short hair bouncing slightly around her face. "A short rest may be a good idea."

"Yeah, we could probably tackle the other sentiences with a fresher minds and bodies if we don't worry about the next one right away," Guy conceded. "Shall we take tonight and tomorrow and rest here in Yulia City?"

"Actually, if you don't mind, I wouldn't be against you taking as much as half a week," Jade said off-handedly.

Anise blinked up at the man. "Colonel? Why 'you?'"

He grinned down at her. "Well, you and I, Anise, are going to have to go on a short trip to repair Tokunaga. The others can stay here and rest up." The group paused for a moment, waiting for Anise to say something, but she didn't give them the satisfaction.

Luke, who previously had been watching Tear with a cautious eye, couldn't help but pipe in, "Um... Anise, aren't you going to complain about not getting a little rest time?"

The girl simply shrugged, saying, "I would, but this is about getting Tokunaga fixed, so I don't mind. I'm grown-up and responsible, too, you know." The others smiled faintly at her, but then she went on to add, "Besides, I get to spend half a week alone with the Colonel!"

Jade sighed. "Well, I suppose my company could be worse. At any rate," he said quickly, switching back to seriousness, "we'll have to borrow the Albiore. We'll probably head to Belkend or Sheridan to talk to Spinoza or Aston. I'll probably need assistance from either of them to get Tokunaga repaired."

"Right. We'll be waiting here for you," Guy informed him. "If you happen to run into a sentience, come back and get us."

"Obviously," Anise said, a little Jade-like. "Come on, Colonel. Let's get moving!"

"Oh, very well," Jade said dismissively. "Slow down, now, Anise, I can't move that fast, anymore."

"J-Jade, wait a second!" Luke said quickly as he started to leave. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

Jade adjusted his glasses. "I hadn't thought so. Am I?"

"When we were about to fight Shadow, you said you figured out what was going on with the sentiences," Luke reminded him.

"Ah, that's correct," Natalia hummed. "Would you inform us before you departed?"

Jade's face was momentarily blank, although this time it was not from his usual attempts at keeping his expression unreadable; this time, it was blank in utter confusion. The moment passed however, and he put his normal face back up. "I'm afraid I can't quite recall what you're talking about."

"Jade, come on, now," Luke implored. "This is important."

The colonel didn't quite know how to say it, but he then realized that the mental block he'd been feeling since being inside the Fracture Field set up by Shadow was serving as a memory block. Specifically, his immediate short-term memory was affected. He remembered being in the Fracture field, but his memories of how he was put in there, of talking to Shadow beforehand, of the battle beginning... it was all gone.

"I'm afraid I'm not making anything up," he said, shrugging once again with his normal Jade tone in place. He returned his hands to his pockets before continuing, "It seems part of my memory isn't working."

Guy frowned. "Are you making fun of Luke?"

"Not at all. I'm rather annoyed that I didn't realize my memory had been damaged beforehand," he replied. Annoyed was not the word for it. Jade was inwardly seething, or as close to the adjective as he could bring himself to be. How could he have not noticed this? How could be have not picked up on what Shadow had done to him? He was careless.

And a careless soldier is just a dead one walking.

"Well..." Guy sighed. "Just... try and figure it out, all right?" He leaned against a nearby wall and rubbed the back of his head. "I swear, I can never tell what's going on in that head of yours..."

Jade turned and left with Anise. The scary thing was, he realized as they walked, neither did he.

Jade was the one who recommended they part ways for a little while, and, though he knew the group needed the break, even he couldn't fathom just how badly they would come to need their few days of rest. The group was, after the battle with Shadow, now drained in every conceivable way. The time off was as much time to heal their emotions as it was to restore their bodies.

Jade sighed as he looked out the Albiore's windows. The sun was slowly setting over the horizon. Jade assumed that Noelle would have them in Sheridan to meet with Aston by late evening. He leaned back in a chair in the Albiore's lower cabin, watching the clouds roll by in the distance over the dying golden-orange hues of light sparkling over the ocean's surface.

The door whirred behind him. "Here you are, Colonel," Anise smiled, taking a seat next to him. "I was wondering where you'd gotten to. The ship isn't large enough to hide in."

The colonel gave her a weak smile. "Not for one of my size, I suppose, Anise," he chuckled. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your presence?"

"Oh, nothing, really," she replied slowly, leaning back in her chair and wiggling into a comfortable position. "I just thought you might... want to talk, is all."

"Ah," Jade sounded softly. "Well, I appreciate your concern, but it's not anything you have to worry about." He slid a finger up to his temple as though to massage it, but then pulled the digit away. His glasses came with his finger, and he started spinning them slowly.

"Colonel..." Anise trailed off, watching the glasses turn with casual disinterest. There were more important things to worry about. "...when we were in the Fracture Field..." she started slowly, wondering how best to approach the man. "Why was Tokunaga so prominent in your trial?"

Jade sighed. The question was going to come eventually, he figured, but he still wasn't sure how best to answer it. "Even I don't know how my own mind works, completely, Anise," he eventually replied, ending the spin and catching his glasses securely in his hand. "Tokunaga could have appeared there for any number of reasons."

"...Colonel, I saw you," Anise said, looking down at the fairly clean floor of the cabin. "Before I arrived, I saw you chasing your other self with your spear drawn... and you looked really angry, too." Jade flushed very slightly, and turned his head away from the girl so that she wouldn't see him actually displaying emotion. When the colonel didn't reply, she continued, saying, "It looked like he was taunting you with Tokunaga in some way... I saw him running and carrying him, but I couldn't see what he was doing with him."

"So you could see the events transpire through the other side of the window?" Jade finally asked. Anise nodded, black curls bobbing with the motion. "And hear everything we said, I suppose."

"No, nothing like that," Anise said quickly, almost feeling like she was starting to encroach into territory she shouldn't. She pressed on, though. "The window didn't let me hear anything, I just saw what was happening..."

Jade stood suddenly. He felt an overwhelming desire to leave the room, even though he knew there was nowhere he could go to escape the tenacious girl within the limited confines of the Albiore. He made for the door, but she was quicker and was standing at the threshold of the room well before he reached it. "Anise..." he started.

"Colonel! I'm trying to talk to you... I'm worried about you, that's all!" she said, a hint of desperation in her voice.

"Don't be," he replied simply. "I'm perfectly fine."

"No one is perfectly fine!" she argued, her minute hands unwillingly tightening into fists. "Everyone was really hurt from that arte, and you're going to be the only one who doesn't tell anyone what happened in there. I know you, Colonel." She folded her arms resolutely across her chest and braced her feet in a solid standing position on the ground. "You're not leaving until we get to talk."

Jade placed his glasses back on his face, sighing deeply. "I'm afraid just talking has never been my forte, Anise. I'm sure you and Noelle could have a very riveting conversation, however."

Anise frowned. "It's not Noelle I'm worried about. Stop trying to distract me!"

Jade just smiled. "I suppose it's fair to say I am... touched by your concern, Anise, but you had your own problems to deal with, didn't you?"

"Oh, boo, we can talk about me later!" she griped, but Jade noticed that she'd trembled a little bit from being reminded of whatever she'd seen in the Field. He made a mental note not to talk about that again until she brought it up. "I'm worried about you."

"Well, isn't this nice?" Jade shrugged, a sly smirk on his face. "We're bonding."

"Colonel, don't make fun of it!" Anise pouted, stamping her foot, albeit softly, on the floor. "I'm trying to be nice, here."

"My apologies," the colonel said smoothly. "Even still, I'm perfectly fine, as you can see."

Anise was frowning, wavering slightly on her feet. She thought she had a good way to get through to him, but there was just as much a chance that her idea would backfire. Even still, she supposed it was worth a try. She looked him straight in the eye and said, "...I heard Tokunaga screaming."

Jade blanched; why, he did not know. He should have expected she'd have heard that, but all the same, it came as a surprise. "...that's... very naughty of you, to have lied like that," he salvaged, putting his pride up on display. "I thought you hadn't heard anything through the window."

"...I heard it when I came into your black room," Anise admitted, "not from through the window. That's not really lying..." She strangely found that she could not look Jade in the eye while she said this, and instead began tracing a long, indeterminate path along the jagged metal lines of the wall segments. "I heard... um... myself." Jade looked strangely pained, even though she could see he was still trying to avoid showing any emotion whatsoever. "...Colonel. It wasn't Tokunaga that Shadow was hurting you with, was it? It was the idea of me being hurt."

Jade fixed his glasses again, hurriedly, despite that they were already perfectly positioned. "Let's not fling about random theories, now, Anise," he coughed softly. "Remember that Tokunaga was linked to my own mind, as well. I'm sure there's a more... careful, scientific explanation for my pain."

Anise didn't buy it. "You've always been very careful and collected in hostage situations, Colonel," she pointed out. "If you'd known that the other you was holding your mind hostage, you'd have handled the whole situation with more tact. As it was, you were angrily running after yourself!" She took a step forward, poking his chest with a thin finger. "Colonel, explain."

Jade looked hurt. "Anise, I'm not Guy," he said in his slow, high-to-low teasing tones. "If you're looking for general explanations, I'm afraid you've cornered the wrong man."

She sighed. "Fine. If that's the way you want to be, then..." She moved forward suddenly, and Jade didn't predict her doing anything drastic enough to warrant dodging her quick advance. Anise clamped her arms and legs around Jade's right leg, locking herself around it tightly. Her whole body was off the ground, her lower limbs cross-legged around his shin and her arms in a tight clinging hug around his upper leg. "I'm not letting go of your leg until you start talking!"

The colonel looked down with a little surprise at the girl, fastened securely to his right leg. He gently nudged her head once or twice to see if she'd be shaken off, but she was gripping his leg entirely too tightly for a slight poke to affect her. "Anise..." Jade said softly, leaving the word hanging in the air.

"Nope!" Anise replied. "I'm not letting go, which means you're not going anywhere!"

Jade actually caught himself chuckling. "If you say so, Anise." He began to walk out of the room, moving slowly due to the girl who'd parasitically attached to his leg. Apparently she hadn't realized that her squeeze would only make his movements more cumbersome, not stop them altogether.

"Whoa, hey!" Anise started screaming as Jade moved with a purposeful high step out of the room. "Colonel!"

"I don't usually engage in spontaneous physical exercise," he replied with a slight grin. "But I suppose going to do two or three hundred squats wouldn't be a terrible thing."

"Boo, boo, boo!"

Her work was slow, but methodically efficient. Teodoro had loaned her a rather fanciful piece of Dawn Age fontech, a device they often used to repair some of the few stone supports for Yulia City. It superheated and cooled rock, which allowed for making repairs in stone; namely, it could fuse several fragments of stone into one. So, the evening came to find Tear sitting almost alone in her selenia garden, kneeling on the cold ground and slowly but surely combining pieces of Van's gravestone together. The remnants were scattered about the garden, but Tear was fixed in her resolve to find and merge every one of them back into the small tribute for the former watcher that she, as a sister, could not help but make.

Tear was almost alone because her solitary work was now being interrupted by a familiar replica, making his quiet way through her yard to her side. At first he simply watched in silence, unsure if his words would be welcome or refused by the mute hymnist. She'd told no one what she was doing, so he spent his time watching her careful movements, and pieced together almost immediately what she was accomplishing. Still without feeling a need for words, he tiptoed over to the far side of the flowers and began collecting pieces of the gravestone.

He had brought her three piles of stones before she brought herself to say, "You don't need to do that." She brushed her bangs from her eye for a moment, but, of course, they fell right back. "I could do this by myself."

Luke allowed himself a grin, despite her mood. "Since when have I been the kind of person to do things because I needed to?"

"I suppose that's true," Tear replied softly. "You act more on instinct and desire than anything." Luke smiled at her, and brought her a fourth pile of stones.

They worked a little longer in silence. The only sounds that the two of them heard were the soft clacking of the stones as Luke placed several in his hands at once and the crackling of the air as the fontech heated the broken rocks. It wasn't for a lack of topic that the two worked so quietly, but Luke felt that anything he could have said to her would be less meaningful than his silent labour. He was content, for the time being, to work in silence.

So when Tear suddenly broke it, he was rather confused as to what he was supposed to do. "I wasn't sure if I was going to make this tribute to my brother the first time I thought he'd died," she said slowly, her voice light over the faint wind that blew through the garden. "I thought the atrocities he'd committed were too great. I thought the pain he'd caused you and countless other people was insurmountable."

Luke knelt down beside her, looking at the smooth sides of the stone she'd already assembled. She'd done a magnificent job. "I don't think anything is insurmountable with family involved."

Tear stared at him with a momentary look of confusion on her face. Then her face turned to a slight grin, and she said, "I never expected you to say something like that."

"What are you talking about?" Luke chuckled softly, looking back at her. "I said the same thing when Natalia and Ingobert were coming to terms with their family crisis."

"Yes," Tear conceded, "but you never agreed to those things when they related to yourself, did you?"

You're pretty good at spotting silver linings so long as it's somebody else's cloud.

Luke shook Guy out of his head. "My situation was totally different," he answered, the smile slipping slowly from his face. "Anything's insurmountable through family. I didn't think they were my family, then. I still... kind of don't."

Tear looked at him with a partially discouraged look. "Luke, how can you still say that? I thought you'd come to terms with everything."

"Kind of, but not really," Luke admitted, sighing a little softly. "I think I was able to accept my family as... my family only because Asch died. Because I didn't have to worry about my original coming to take his place back. Now there's no one that can take my place, I guess." He picked up two pieces of the gravestone and handed them to her, noting that she'd stopped working while listening to him muse.

She took the two pieces, talking while she worked. "But you always said that you weren't a replacement for Asch, didn't you?" she reminded him. "If you weren't the same as Asch... if you weren't his replacement, how could he be yours?"

"I don't think that's the same," Luke argued back, scratching his head slowly. "He could never replace me, but he could replace my status."

"I don't think that's the case," Tear mumbled distractedly, her attention now split between Luke and the gravestone. "You're the only person who didn't ever see that."

"Well, whatever," Luke offered lamely, leaning back against the cool ground. "Why did you want to talk about that, anyway? Has something about Master Van come up lately?"

Tear looked downcast for a moment. "When I was in the Fracture Field... it was Van that I saw."

"Tear..." Luke brought himself to mumble, but couldn't progress past that.

"And even though I managed to defeat him fairly quickly," and here she lowered the fontech and stopped working on the gravestone, so focused was she on her memory, "...I mean, I know I did the right thing, but I don't... know I did the right thing. Sorry, I'm not making sense, am I?"

"Not really," Luke smiled, smiling a little, "but it's not really something that's supposed to make sense right away, I don't think."

She asked softly, "So... I know this is a strange question, but..." She sighed deeply. "Am I... a bad sister?"

"Tear!" Luke said, complaining.

"I miss my brother, and I loved him," she continued, shaking hair away from her normally uncovered eye again. "But I was the first one to repel my phantom... and my phantom was my brother. And even back then, I fought Vandesdelca with everything I had." She turned the stone in circles in her hand. "I'm a horrible sister, Luke."

"No, you're not!" Luke shouted. "If anyone's horrible, it's Master Van for being a bad brother."

Tear didn't look convinced. "But I-"

"You what?" Luke pressed. "You didn't do anything wrong! Tear..." he said, taking her by the shoulders and making sure she was focused on him. "In any kind of relationship, you're not the only person who can make a decision that ruins it." Tear blinked, but didn't avert her gaze. It was as though something he'd said had finally reached her. He went on, "You can't blame yourself for that. You did everything you could. He didn't."

"Luke..." Tear smiled. "...yes. I can- and will- accept that." She chuckled suddenly. "I never expected you to try and cheer me up."

"I never expected to succeed," he deadpanned. She gave him a gentle shove.

An hour later, Jade grinned to himself as he drank deeply from his tea. He had eventually decided not to try and shake the girl off his leg, assuming that she would, sooner or later, grow bored and release her grip on his limb. Of course, she had yet to let him go. It was to her credit, he reflected, that the girl was as tenacious as she was- really, she was startlingly close to Dist's level of bullheadedness- yet never managed to annoy him to the level that the fontech engineer did. He replaced his smile with an expressionless mask as he lowered the teacup, looking down, rather bemused, at the girl wrapped around his leg. "I hope you realize, Anise, that your presence on my leg is only a nuisance as long as I can feel you."

"Huh?"

"I lost feeling in that leg half an hour ago from your squeezing," he informed her, taking another quick sip.

She frowned up at him. "If you think that's going to make me let go, you're wrong."

"Oh, not at all," Jade said teasingly. "Honestly, with you preventing blood going to my leg, there's more of it going to my brain. I may get more productive work done on Tokunaga, yet." He smiled and plucked the doll from a nearby table where he lay and began examining the broken weapon. "Aston and I will have to be delicate with how we deal with this..."

"Colonel, why don't we go to Grand Chokmah?" Anise asked innocently. "After all, Dist was the one who make Tokunaga in the first place. Shouldn't he know how to fix it?"

The Colonel unwillingly held his breath and let it out slowly. "I'd rather not inadvertently wind up in Dist's debt, helpful though he may be," he said carefully, studying the tattered hole in the doll's posterior. "I'm quite confident that between Spinoza, Aston and I, we can reconnect any loose fontech."

"I really hope so, Colonel..." she trailed off. Jade dimly felt her grip loosen slightly out of her concern, but didn't feel any desire to shake her off. He instead began looking at the doll with a critical eye. In its reduced form, however, he found it difficult to really study the inner workings closely.

"Anise, would you mind enlarging Tokunaga for me?" he asked. "It's very difficult to work like this."

She shook her head. "If I take my hands off to enlarge him, you're going to shake me off your leg," she argued. "I can wait."

"I can't," he said flatly. "I promise not to... shake you off," he vowed, placing the doll on the ground. Anise looked unsure, but she tightened the lock of her legs for insurance and removed her hands from his leg. She placed her hands on Tokunaga and the doll grew to its normal size, the fontech inside soundlessly working to make the doll a giant toy of death. Anise seemed a little surprised when Jade allowed her to grab onto his leg again. "Thank you," he said simply, and began peering into Tokunaga.

Anise clung to his leg for a few more minutes before letting go, moving back to the floor and standing up. Jade raised an eyebrow. "What?" she asked, trying to look cute.

"Oh, nothing," he answered, going back to work studying Tokunaga. "I just thought you weren't going to let go until I spoke to you about... something or other."

She frowned. "I wasn't. But I realized that your challenge in the Field was only ended when you trusted someone," she said softly, looking at Tokunaga rather than him as she spoke. "And I just figured that if you were able to trust me, then I guess I have to trust you to tell me about stuff instead of forcing it out of you." Jade made to answer her, but she turned her back on him and said, "I'm going to go lie down. Wake me up when we get to Sheridan." She left the room, leaving him alone in the room with Tokunaga.

Jade let out a slow sigh. "Well, Jade," he muttered to himself under his breath, "you blew that rather spectacularly, didn't you?" He picked up and turned Tokunaga's tiny tail between his fingers. "You should have asked her to enlarge this, as well."

Since the lowering of the outer lands, Yulia City had seen a boardwalk added to the outside edge of the dome. The nice thing about Yulia City, Guy decided internally, strolling calmly along this boardwalk, was the ability to just drift slowly around the passage and lose yourself in the endless cerulean world, to watch the clouds lazily float across the sky, to watch-

Oh, who was he kidding? It was the fontech he loved!

But even the Dawn Age machinery wasn't enough to really cheer him up at the moment. The battle against Shadow had left him drastically hurt, not from the Break Touch arte he'd endured, but from seeing his sister, alive and responsive before him. This was different from the replica Mary they'd met, as well; that Mary didn't believe she was Mary. This one had, and it hurt him all the more to watch her fade out of his life again.

He leaned against the boardwalk's railing, watching his reflection in the shimmering water. It waved and broke, then reformed after a tiny wave passed it by. He wasn't very surprised when he saw Natalia's reflection appear in the water next to his.

"Here you are," she said, awkwardly feeling a lack of better things to say. She followed his gaze into the water, and the two looked at each other through their reflections. "...Have you...erm... seen Luke or Tear around since we parted ways?"

He shook his head. "Have you tried her house?" he asked quietly.

"N-no," she stuttered. She kicked herself mentally. Why am I acting so evasive with him?

"Oh?" he said. "I'm a little surprised you didn't check there, first."

"Yes, well," she coughed slightly to mask her poor start to the conversation, "I... really wanted to talk to you, anyway."

A very faint smile played across his lips, but it faded as quickly as it had appeared. "Well, I guess you found me."

"Yes," she agreed, staring deeply into the water, as though hoping her next words would somehow float up to her. Unfortunately, she wasn't so lucky.

Guy spoke again. "...So... what did you want to talk about?"

I'm sure you have more of a clue than that... "Um... Well, actually, I wished to speak with you about the Fracture Field arte..."

"...I see," Guy said. He looked away from her and the reflection in the water, instead looking off into the distant horizon. "I guess I should have seen that coming. What in particular?"

Natalia gaped at him. "How... can you act so casual about your feelings about it?" she questioned him. "My trial wasn't anywhere near as harsh as yours, and I still feel rather badly about it. You must be..." She stopped, not wanting to pressure him into putting his feelings out in the open.

He did, anyway. "Yeah," he admitted, "I'm hurting." She went to take his arm, but he stepped away a little, saying, "You don't have to worry about me, though. I'll be fine."

She closed the distance between them again almost as soon as he'd stepped back. "It wouldn't matter if I worried about you because I had to. I'm worrying about you because you're... you," she blushed, now averting her gaze slightly.

"...yeah. Thanks," he said back. "I'm... worried about you, too. What did you see in the Field, anyway?" he asked, as much out of concern as to relieve the pressure on him.

Her blush grew. "I'm not... sure how much you should hear of it," she admitted quietly.

Guy smiled and leaned out over the railing again. "If you're not comfortable telling me, don't. It's okay." He smiled genuinely. "I'm sure one of the others will hear you out whenever you need to tell someone."

"It's not that!" Natalia said quickly, shaking her head. "It is just that my challenge somewhat involved you, Guy."

"Me?"

"Yes," she replied, leaning next to him against the rail. "I saw a younger version of myself... and I saw how mean I used to be to you," she admitted, her eyes half-closed in memory.

"Natalia..." Guy started, but she shook her head to silence him and she kept speaking.

"You were always a great servant, and... I think if I had actually looked at the person, I would have been as close to you as Luke was, when we were children," she admitted, and she turned her face away so that he wouldn't see the amount of emotion she was scared she was about to show. "But I ordered you to do everything I could think of... I took your phobia not as a serious condition you had, but just as an inconvenience toward my own future plans." She whispered, "I had no respect for you."

"...Natalia," Guy said softly, "It's not like I had... the utmost respect for you, then, either."

"But you lived with it!" she said quickly. "And I couldn't do you the same courtesy."

"I hated Luke, then, Natalia. I hated all of House Fabre, and even, at one point, all of the Royal Family... you, included," he admitted. "You didn't have respect for me, but at least you didn't hate me. Maybe at my angriest, I would have killed you if I could have gotten away with it."

"Guy!" she gasped. "I don't believe that."

"No... I don't think I do, either," he admitted, grinning a little. "I don't believe that I was someone like that, once. That's what the memory of my family turns me into."

"So..." she said sadly, "even now..."

"Of course not!" he exclaimed suddenly. "If the memory of my family still made me hate House Fabre and Kimlasca, then you would never have been able to save me in the Field. I would have attacked you on sight, remember?"

She nodded slightly, raising her left hand and bushing bangs out of her face. "I suppose..."

"Natalia... we're okay, now," he said, after waiting a moment in silence for her to say more. "I obviously don't hate you. I would never dream of killing you, or hurting you."

"Guy..."

"You pulled me out of the Field, and I owe you for that," he said, his faint smile coming back to remain on his face. "And if I had anything but complete trust in you, I don't think you could have done that."

She didn't answer him through words. Instead she edged closer to him and rested her head and torso against his arm as he leaned against the rail. When she first made contact, Guy stiffened ever so slightly, a slight twinge running through his body, but he found that he felt strangely used to it, strangely used to her, and so he didn't jerk away from her or gently nudge her off as she laid against his body. He simply smiled as she rested there, the two of them content to watch as the sun finally began lowering over the distant horizon line. The day was ending, but now the healing could finally begin.

Noelle landed on the outskirts of Sheridan about half an hour before sunset. The colonel roused Anise, then left to the bridge and told Noelle she was done flying for the day as Anise went off to shrink Tokunaga so they could carry him easier. The two met at the Albiore's boarding ramp, and they made the best use of their remaining daylight to begin the short walk to the city. Anise didn't say anything to him. She seemed entirely too absorbed in her thoughts to even notice him.

Jade, of course, couldn't resist noting her unusual indifference. "My, my, Anise," he smirked, "aren't we the thoughtful one today?"

She sighed at him. "I suppose so, Colonel. Did you figure anything out about Tokunaga?"

He shrugged in reply. "Well, I have a reasonable idea how the fontech functions, but I'm afraid until I speak to Aston I won't be sure for certain. Is there something on your mind?" he said, diverting the topic back to her inner thoughts.

She blinked back. "Why are you interested?"

The colonel adjusted his glasses, grinning, "Oh, I'm afraid I'm just naturally curious about things. It's gotten worse in my old age, you see."

"Right," she said in passing, shrugging off his usual sarcasm. "Well, it doesn't really matter, Colonel, so don't worry about it, okay?"

Jade raised an eyebrow. "That's unlike you," he commented. Usually when I take an interest in her, she leaps all over it. How curious.

"I guess it is," she said off-handedly. "We're almost at the city." She pointed ahead to the gates, which were coming faster and faster into sight with every passing step.

Jade suddenly laughed softly. "Anise, you wouldn't happen to be withholding your thoughts from me until I tell you about my experiences in the Fracture Field, would you?" He shook his head. "My, I never thought I'd be coerced by you."

"Maybe, maybe not," she shrugged. "And it's not really coercion, considering you don't care enough to tell me one way or another." She kept walking, but Jade almost took a movement that, to a lesser being, might have been considered "losing a step."

"Well, I admit to being... remotely curious, regardless," Jade smiled, walking now in stride with her (albeit a small one for him and a large one for her). "I will make you a deal, Anise. I'll answer one question about the Fracture Field for you if you'll then tell me what you were thinking about."

Anise looked shocked. "Colonel, that's not like you at all!" she cried. "What's the matter?"

"I suppose I'm... shall we say," he mused, pausing to look for the precise word, "slightly concerned about you."

"Oh, Colonel!" she exclaimed warmly, grabbing his arm in a warm hug, "you do care!"

"Not at all," he teased, fixing his glasses. "I just don't want to lose a powerful minion."

She stuck her tongue out at him, but took it as the compliment it was. "So, just one question?" she asked.

He smiled. "I'm only giving you one question mark to use, Anise."

"Fine," she said, and without hesitation, asked him, "Why did you lose your composure so much, why was it my voice, and why was Tokunaga so prominent in your expanse?"

Jade lifted the same eyebrow again, higher this time. "I believe I said one question," he frowned at her.

"I believe you changed the rules when you said, 'One question mark,' Colonel," Anise replied. "That was all one sentence, with one question mark."

The colonel just sighed. "Oh, very well," he said, "if I must." He removed his glasses and began dutifully cleaning the lenses with the hem of his sleeve as he answered. "I lost my composure due to a mix of being mentally attacked via Tokunaga linked to my mind and from being enraged at the... prospect that he was hurting you." This last bit was said a little faster, as though he thought that saying it with more speed would make her forget it. "It was your voice and Tokunaga was so prominent because you are... apparently my closest friend among the group, and, being so, it was easier to attack me by using you."

Anise's eyes widened. "I'm your friend?"

"Is it really such a surprise to hear that?" he asked, looking down at her with an glasses-less face.

"Not... really," she said, looking down. "I knew that, but it's not something I expected you to say."

"I suppose I don't say those things often," he admitted.

"I'm... actually a little flattered," Anise said quietly. "I didn't know I was that important to you."

"Neither did I," he said, upbeat. "It's astonishing what you can learn during torture."

"...you know," she said slowly. "Those answers aren't really as... full as I was hoping for."

"Oh?" Jade smiled. "What were you hoping for? That I would break down in full-fledged horror of my own experience?"

"...no, but I was expecting you to lose your usual cheery tone," she admitted.

"Oh, well," he grinned wider. "There's always next time." Inwardly, Jade smiled deeper than his face showed in relief when she didn't touch on the issue of his memory loss. He smiled even wider, still, when he got to say his next statement. "So, isn't it about time for you to give me a penny for your thoughts?"

"Oh, that," Anise grinned mischieviously. "I was thinking about a way to get you to talk about what happened in the Fracture Field. Thanks, Colonel!" she said cheerily, and skipped off into the city. Jade watched her go with an unreadable expression on her face.

I can't believe it! Anise rejoiced in her head. I actually put one over on the Colonel!

I can't believe it, Jade sighed to himself. Children today can't do anything without an adult's help. He chucked as he put his glasses back on and followed her. Maybe next time she'll get information out of me without me setting her up to take it. ...and perhaps now we can move on and forget about it. He passed through the city gates, and he and Anise went off to find Aston.