Disclaimer: I don't own Vampire Knight or any characters

A Pureblood cannot truly die until his heart stops beating. Even if the rest of his body is destroyed and turns to dust, so long as his heart still lives, he still lives.

And so even though Kaname's first love had her heart torn out of her chest 10,000 years ago, she didn't truly die until that night that the furnace exploded because the furnace kept her heart beating all that time…

That's why I can't allow you to throw your heart into the Parent Furnace, Kaname. Your conscience is going to live on even then. And that's why I must kill you myself. I'm not going to leave you behind, Kaname. I'm not going to abandon you…

Please come back so we can finally be together for all eternity…in a place where I will no longer selfishly thirst for Zero's blood…

"Yuki, that was Aidou and he told me Kaname showed up at the hospital this morning," the Headmaster announced as he sat down to breakfast almost three days after the incident. Yuki and Zero had already started eating a few minutes before, but the Headmaster had to answer the phone before he could join then. "I suspect he'll be showing up here quite soon. Are you ready?"

"Of course," Yuki replied nonchalantly and she took a bite of food. It'd taken her all that time to get her emotions under control and she wasn't about to let herself lose that control.

Zero continued to chew silently, his unusually cheery expression suddenly turning to disdain.

"Oh, Zero…you're up! Did you have a nice nap?" Yuki asked as Zero emerged from his room and stepped into the living room and sat down on the couch next to her. Yuki had been reading a magazine to help her keep her mind off all that was going on.

"I guess it was alright," Zero sighed. He started eyeing the walls and the marks left by the picture frames that had left. He murmured, "You never put the photos back on the wall. Why?"

"Oh, that?" Yuki sputtered. "I guess I just haven't had a chance to get around to it, what with all that's being going on."

"You have time read a magazine but you don't have time to put the Headmaster's pictures back up?" Zero smirked.

"Look! I don't remember where they go, okay?" Yuki snapped. "So just stop bugging me about it already!"

Zero just laughed.

"What? Why are you laughing?" Yuki demanded. When Zero started to laugh even harder, Yuki found herself suppressing a smile. She felt normal, sitting around being taunted and teased by Zero, still drowsy from his afternoon nap. She felt sad, too, as she knew it wasn't going to last. Things were never going to go back to the way they used to be.

Zero sat staring contently at Yuki, causing her to blush. She could tell that the old feelings were forcing themselves even through Zero's lost memories. The depth of his love was incomprehensible to her. She realized, though, that she never forgot her love for Kaname, even after he erased her own memories. What was incomprehensible was how Zero could love her at all. Whether she was a Pureblood or a human, she only pushed his love away, as she had promised herself to Kaname, who was ultimately pushing her away just as she was pushing away Zero. They both knew clearly the pain of unreciprocated love.

Can I even trust my feelings for Zero when I feel so sorry for him? She thought, her face falling.

"Hey, cheer up," Zero said. "Aren't you happy that Kaname will be coming back soon?"

"Zero, have you ever been in love with two people at the same time?" Yuki found herself asking.

Zero turned away from her. "You can't allow yourself to think like that. You're just confused, Yuki. Your feelings for me aren't real."

"That's what I've been telling myself," Yuki confessed. "But the only reason I started feeling these things was because I knew you felt them too."

"I'm sorry. I should have never let this go so far," Zero said. "You're engaged to somebody else. And you're a Pureblood. It was irresponsible for me to let myself feel this way, let alone been so obvious about my feelings…We should have never gotten so comfortable around one another."

"Is that really so wrong?" Yuki wondered. "Can't we have important relationships in our lives that aren't romantic or between family members?"

"I might have said yes, if you hadn't just basically confessed to being in love with me," Zero stated.

"Don't have important people in your life besides me, though?" Yuki questioned.

"I cared very dearly for my brother, but I guess that's a family member," Zero answered. "I suppose my master's pretty important to me too, though."

"And Yori is very dear to me," Yuki said.

"Despite our capacities to love other people without actually falling in love with them, though, I don't think you and I are actually in love," Zero said. "That sort of thing just doesn't happen over the course of a couple of weeks."

"But, we've known each other more than just a couple of weeks!" Yuki blurted and then promptly cuffed her mouth shut.

Zero raised an eyebrow, but then he recalled the conversation they'd had with the Headmaster about then the night Rido attacked the academy. "Right…I suppose we acknowledge one another's existence in passing that night, but that was it, wasn't it?"

Yuki shook her head. She felt she could be honest without actually having to reveal everything to him and once. And so she confessed, "Zero…that night was the first time I ever realized I had feelings for you."

Zero's faced turned wry and confused. He asked, "Was it because I can running to your aid when you were on the roof with Kaname? …Did Kaname do something to you that night?"

"No…why would you ask that?" Yuki wondered.

"You seemed like you were in a coma…why?" Zero questioned.

"That was a very rough time in my life," Yuki said. "I was only out for a few minutes, but I brought that coma on myself."

"Okay," Zero replied without pressing for further details on Yuki's struggles. "At one point did you realize you had feelings for a complete stranger?"

We were complete strangers, weren't we? That was night that Yuki Kuran, someone neither Zero no Yuki Cross knew, was born. So, although we'd known each for four years, we did, in essence, become strangers that night.

"Are you okay, Yuki?" Zero asked. "You're just staring off into space."

Yuki smile weakly and said, "Never mind, just forget it…"

"Yeah, I think we stop talking about this," Zero agreed. "It's pointless anyways."

"It's so quiet," Yuki murmured. Her and Zero had decided to take a walk around the campus ground as they had gone stir crazy. It had been over 24 hours since the Headmaster and Zero had been bailed out of prison and the first time Yuki had been outside since returning from the Moon Dorm.

It was almost dark.

"I imagine you're pretty used to it being nothing but chaotic, considering you've seen nothing but trouble in the small amount of time you've actually spent here," Zero replied. "Whether you can believe it or not, you didn't exactly miss much otherwise."

"So life's pretty boring around here, then?" Yuki wondered.

"Well, I suppose it had its moments when I was back on the disciplinary committee, but other than that, yes," Zero said.

"I heard you ran the disciplinary committee on your own, though," Yuki commented. "You must have had your hands full constantly with day class students trying to sneak into the Moon Dorm."

"My life's always been full of vampires and keeping their existence a secret, so that was nothing unusual," Zero claimed. "Keeping them in their place is all I really know."

"You must have a life outside your hunter duties, though," Yuki said. "And friend that you like to hang out with."

Zero didn't respond.

I guess I never really thought about before, but Zero really didn't have any friends, did he? He always kept himself at a distance from everyone else.

"You must feel so alone," Yuki whispered.

Zero still didn't respond, but he did consider her comment. He'd felt miserably lonely for quite some time, he had to admit. But, in his heart, he could remember a time where he hadn't felt that way. More days were a struggle than were happy, but he hadn't ever felt blatantly lonely up until…

Up until the night that I killed Rido…

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have pried." Yuki said.

"There's something I've been wondering about," Zero said. "You told the Headmaster that you weren't afraid dirty your hands because you already dirtied them with Rido's blood. But, what you said the other day doesn't make any sense because you weren't anywhere near the battle between Rido and I."

Yuki had had a long time to consider the answer to that question. She had thought about it a lot, because she knew it was bound to come up sooner or later. Her answers came not with words, but with a cheap method to cover up her tracks.

"Hey, Zero, aren't you cold?" Yuki dodge the question. She walked up to Zero then and began to button up his coat. As she came up to his chest and fastened the last button, she purposefully, but with an air of timidly, began to seductively slid her hands up his collar bone and neck, until her hands were wrapped around his hand. She lifted herself up to her tiptoes then and reached her mouth to his. His closed his eyes then, confessing that he had become completely unguarded. She erased his memory of her saying that she had dirtied her hands with Rido's blood, but touched nothing else that wasn't directly related to that moment.

I'll let you keep your memories about falling for me all over again because right now, more than ever, I need you to trust me. Kaname could come at any moment and if I'm to make you human, I need you trust me wholly and completely.

Zero leaned forward. Although she had intended to pull herself away, claiming that it wasn't right, Yuki still surrendered to the moment. Their lips touched softly at first. Zero wrapped his arms around Yuki and pulled her closer as he started to kiss her even more passionately. Yuki told herself to pull away all the while, but she could not deny her aching heart any longer. She pulled at the knot in Zero's tie, still peeking out from his coat, and then after she slipped it off, she tossed it on the ground.

Zero pulled away then and stared into Yuki's eyes. Her cheeks had turned a soft rosy pink, but her expression was solid. She nodded slightly and Zero leaned forward to kiss her once more. Yuki began to undo the buttons on Zero's coat as he slipped his fingers under her shirt at her hips.

Yuki and Zero wordlessly collected their clothes and then walked back to the Headmaster's House in silence.

"I'll wash and you dry, okay, Yuki?" Zero said as they cleaned up breakfast the day before Kaname's return.

"Sure," Yuki said as they two stepped into the kitchen, their arms full of dirty dishes.

Kaien just shook his head.

"Lord Kaname, you came!" Aidou exclaimed. He leapt out of his hospital bed to greet Kaname properly, but yelped in pain as his right foot hit the floor and put pressure on his shin.

"You need to be more careful," Kaname said. He approached Aidou and helped into his bed. When Aidou was situated, Kaname slapped him. "In more ways than one…"

"I'm sorry, Lord Kaname," Aidou sobbed. "I just didn't know how else to get your attention."

"Just be grateful you didn't kill Yuki after all because you would have gotten much worse than that," Kaname grunted. "And be grateful you didn't get worse than that because you deserve it for even threatening her in the first place."

"I'm sorry," Aidou whispered, "I am so sorry."

"I'm done with you now. I need to make a visit to the Headmaster's house." Kaname said and started making his way to the door. "Please do let him know that I'm coming. I don't want to barge in on him unannounced."

"Of course, Lord Kaname…"