All righty! Next chapter!

My apologies for not updating on Monday, as I generally do: this site was not letting me login for three days. :P

Oh, and um, before everyone proceeds to light up baseball bats and haul pitchforks, keep in mind, this resumes the flashback chapters from earlier. You'll have to wait a little bit until we return to the previous chapter, with Solomon vs. Haji! Sorry! (Shields self from barrage of punches and curses). However, I'll be picking up the pace - and angst - and getting into exactly how Saya and Solomon's marriage went craptastic from here on.

Also, this chapter contains some freaky imagery. i. e. VIETNAM!

You've been warned. ;)

Review, pretty please.

"Saya? Saya?"

Blood and pain and concrete.

Snippets of words, in languages she can't understand. Splintering agony and stinging hypodermics. White hospital lights and the taste of blood in a dry mouth. She can't move. Her body is torpid and sunken, like some gelatinous mass filled with liquid pain.

She's been in this situation enough times during the war, to know she's sedated, steeped in painkillers.

But, as always, the main question is…

What happened?

All she remembers is brilliant lights and a shrill screech in her ears, the sound of monstrous impending doom. If sounds are flavors, and if flavors are objects, it tastes like fireworks have exploded in her mouth.

Her only distinct memory, lucid as a bead of oil slipped into water, is of gunshots and screams.

Bullets raging all across the air, slicing hot gashes across her skin. The whirr of helicopters, the echo of explosions. Choking Napalm; blistering flames; screams erupting amid slashes of her sword. An entire battlefield transformed into a crimson blood sea, until she is seeing, tasting, even breathing it.

Vietnam.

Yes. That's where she is.

Vietnam

"Saya—Saya, are you all right?"

She hears a voice closeby, urgent hands shaking her. A pale face swimming in and out of her vision. Familiar…yet not the one she has expected to see. The one she always sees at these moments is comprised of sharp contrasts. Black hair a frame for white cheeks. Dark pupils a nucleus for arctic blue.

But this face is rounder, stangely younger. A soft swirl of golden curls falling around larger, sadder green eyes. A full star-shaped mouth, forming the syllables of her name, calling her insistently.

"Saya? Please, Saya, open your eyes!"

Is he talking to… me?

"I'm sorry…" she hears herself say. "This just can't be real…"

He doesn't understand what she means. Or perhaps he hasn't heard. All she feels is his hands tightening on her's, fingers lacing together taut as quiltwork. It should be painful, his grip, but she relishes his warmth, relishes being pinned down. Her whole body feels cool and weightless, as though dissolving into thin air.

"Don't worry, Saya. It's going to be all right. Please, just hold on."

She sails on semi-consciousness, addled by drugs and fever. Sees the man's face intermittently, hears him speaking. Not to her anymore, but to the faces swirling around her, muttering tongues she can't decipher. He speaks the same language; his voice is so light and cool as to be almost ethereal, but with a subtle authority shaping each syllable.

"…is there any further risk of preterm labor?"

Heads nod, others shake. Someone murmurs the names of what might be medications.

"…the scans… are the babies all right?"

More murmurs. She doesn't know what they are saying, only feels a pair of hands tightening on hers.

And then that familiar face, peering down at her.

"Get better soon, angel. Please. Open your eyes."

The time that elapses is indeterminate; days, or months, or even years. Her only tactile sensations are of slippery latex fingers on her skin, cold needles, machinery droning in her ears. Pain and confusion warps everything, tears making the world ripple, as though she's underwater.

And then she smells roses, feels warm sunshine on her face, and knows she is no longer at the hospital.

Disoriented, Saya's eyes flutter open, taking a moment to focus. The room she is in is bright with sunlight, carpeted with red flowers. Their scent, sweet and fresh at first, quickly becomes cloying, oppressive. She lies on a large bed, covered in downy sheets. The mattress beneath absorbs her like a well of liquid, making every movement sluggish.

She swallows, throat so parched her tongue feels glued to her mouth.

Where am I…?

Abruptly, a pale hand appears, bearing a glass full of blood. A gentle arm slides around her back and shoulders, propping her up and pressing the glass' cool rim to her lips. Rudimentary needs are overwhelming; Saya immediately swallows the blood, raising leaden fingers to lift the glass higher.

The blood is bliss, sweet and warm. She gulps and gulps and gulps, her thirst intense—but the hand abruptly draws the glass away, setting it on the adjacent nightstand.

"Easy. Not too much immediately," a familiar male voice murmurs.

She understands why as she begins to choke from swallowing too fast. A terrific bolt of pain shoots to her head. She lurches upright, but the hand tightens on her shoulders, firm and protective, pressing her back.

"Saya, please do not move so quickly. You're heavily medicated and you have suffered a mild concussion. Please, just lie back and relax."

Saya grits her teeth, forcing back the upsurge of pain. When she has finally gained some control over the discomfort, she lifts her head to blearily regard the speaker.

"S-Solomon?"

He smiles, but there is a sliver of anxiety in his eyes. "Are you strong enough to talk? Do you want to sleep more?"

She blinks, shaking her head no.

He breathes out in a low sigh. His lips press to her forehead, feverish across her dry skin. Saya almost feels the gratitude pouring off him. "I'm glad you're awake, Saya. I was worried."

Even as she battens on this gratifying closeness, pressing against him on instinct, she raises confused eyes to his. "Solomon… what happened?"

He doesn't answer. With the back of his hand, he gently wipes off the dribble of blood on her chin. He wears a white shirt, untucked and unbuttoned at the top; his hair sticks up in unruly tendrils as through he's been running his hands through it. His gaze is more heavy-lidded than usual; she feels a subtle tremor racing across the warm fingers on her shoulder.

"What happened?" she repeats.

Solomon exhales. "You nearly got crushed by a car, is what. Saya, I don't understand what you were doing out there by yourself."

"Wh-what?"

"At the market. You ran down the street and leapt right in the middle of moving traffic."

"I did… what?" She struggles to fill in the void in her memory.

She can still recall that deafening roar of engines, the blinding lights and the shrill screee whose resonance makes her flesh crawl—

Solomon's voice cuts in, this time with a harsher note: "I specifically warned you not to head out alone, didn't I? What were you thinking, running out there by yourself? It was extremely reckless of you."

"Reckless?"

"Gallivanting out in that crowded street without telling anyone. You had me worried sick. You cannot just take off whenever you feel like it, Saya—you are not just responsible for yourself anymore. You have your pregnancy to take into account. And my own feelings on the matter; a little consideration wouldn't hurt. Just what you were doing out there?"

"What I was…doing?" She blinks, fighting to remember. The memory comes back to her in bits and pieces, a disjointed sequence of fetters.

…Water drumming on her, hot and searing as lava. Sluicing down her back, splattering her hair around her face and neck. She breathes deeply on the steam, tipping her face up to the spray.

The glass shower-stall is painted with exquisite black swans, swirls of silver and golden etchings. Murky fog wreathes the air; the rhythmic beat of water is the only sound in the brilliant bathroom. Solomon has left fifteen minutes ago, called away for a meeting with colleagues; she is alone at their hotel suite in Ho Chi Minh City.

Her husband wants her to stay inside—he warns her about the oppressive humidity of the outside streets, the inferno of crime and pollution he'd rather see her avoid. Somewhat mulish at being ordered to stay indoors like a child, Saya reluctantly concedes, with the guarantee that he will take her out as soon as his business is concluded.

Ever since the carnage in Spain, where Solomon hacked those men to shreds, her nerves have been stretched taut, vibrating on edge. Their brief stop-over at Vietnam hasn't exactly helped matters. It was Solomon's idea to come here. He has a must-attend conference that can't be missed, and he has cajoled and coaxed her into accompanying him here for a three-day stay.

Saya doesn't want to be here—this region holds nothing but hideous reminders for her.

Vietnam is the centerfold of her greatest massacre, after all. Vietnam is where she first underwent that tremendous psychological pressure that squashed all her memories flat. Where she first drove Phantom out of his mind by cutting off his hand—first introduced Haji to the bitterness and bloodshed promised to him if he stayed with her any further.

And when Solomon is gone, abandoning her in the massive suite with only pounding water to fill her ears, it's all she thinks about.

Which is precisely when her jitters begin.

She can't explain what triggers them, except that her heart begins beating too loudly. A harsh palpable throb, rattling in her temples, her throat. It rises higher than the tempo of her breathing, louder than the drumming water.

The room suddenly seems to be closing in on her, the walls, the ceiling, all looming nearer and nearer, trying to box her in, crush her to pulp.

She remembers the water, thumping loud in the stall—except the sound suddenly distorts, turning to the whirr of helicopter rotors.

Searing red flashes across her eyes. She sees the grotesque shadow of a chopper swooping past a gap in the palmtrees. The steamy air of the shower suddenly presses on her, turning to scorching flame and acrid smoke. A rictus of screams fills her ears, the roar of fire and Chiropterans, the stench of blood and hatred and sheer scintillating terror.

And through it all, a voice, garbled and indistinct, screaming her name:

Saya…!

"Saya!" Solomon's voice yanks her back to the present.

She flinches, staring at him. "Wh-what?"

"Saya, just what were you doing out there? Why did you leave the hotel room?"

She swallows dryly, shaking her head. "I…I don't know."

"I had to leave in the middle of the meeting, because you weren't answering the phone to our room, and I was concerned something might have happened to you. It is extremely fortunate that I came back in time—otherwise you might have been worse off. Do you know, if the car hit you at a closer angle, it might have snapped your neck? Done something terrible to the babies? Just what were you thinking, heading out there by yourself?"

"The babies?" The word rings like a coin clamoring in a metal cup. A bolt of fear shoots through her. "Ohgod—what happened to the babies? Solomon, what did—?"

His palm across her belly, reassuring, restraining. "You don't have to worry. They are all right. You're well into your first trimester, and you went into preterm labor about twenty minutes after you were hit. Fortunately we got you to the hospital on time, and the doctors averted it with the proper medication. They carried out ultrasounds and monitored the babies, but there seemed to be no change in the fetal patterns."

"I…I see." Her hands move on reflex to her belly, smoothing it gingerly as though handling broken glass. She doesn't know what she'd do if anything terrible were to happen to her unborn children.

A moment later, Solomon's own hand covers hers, fingers twining tight. "You are not in any immediate danger, but all the same I want you to stay vigilant these next few days. If you have the slightest cramps or discomfort, or if there are any signs of bleeding, tell me immediately."

She nods mutely, staring down at their interlaced hands. Her fingers look small and strangely brittle underneath his, wispy enough to dissolve like spun sugar against his palms.

"How…how long was I out?" she asks.

"Forty-eight hours. They wanted to keep you longer at the hospital, but in at least a day, all your bruises had healed, so it was imperative that we leave as soon as all the necessary tests were conducted. I wanted to avoid the staff asking too many questions."

"You… could have called Dr. Julia over. Or told Kai."

Solomon shakes his head. "And have them nearly as worried about you as I was? Especially while I was unsure of your condition? No. I have not spoken to your family about this yet—honestly, I could not bring myself to leave your side long enough to call them up. You really gave me a fright, Saya. What were you doing out there in the first place?"

"I…" She falters, squeezing her eyes shut. "I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

"I don't know." His expression makes her conscious of her sharp tone. Teeth gritted, she forces her voice down. "I can't explain it. I just couldn't stay in the hotel room. I just… I had to get out."

"Had to get out? Why? What was wrong with you?"

"I'm not sure, all right? It was all so strange. You'd left the hotel, and… I was in the shower. Everything was fine, but then—" She swallows. "I don't know what happened. Suddenly it felt like I couldn't breathe. I kept… seeing so many faces. I kept remembering."

"Remembering what?"

"I—" She breaks off; the influx of memory harsh and immediate.

… Howling women and children, shredded under her blade. The curses of soldiers, their sweat and terror sharp in her nose. Bellowing chiropterans, fangs oozing ropes of blood. Fire, fear, all around her, a swelling symphony of death. A million emotions raging: bliss, hatred, horror, remorse, each one eternal in its clarity.

She's still standing in the shower, but the hot water suddenly feels like a cascade of blood. Splattering her skin, drenching her in red, filling her eyes and nose. Her flesh crawls, prickling as though a million ants race across the surface.

Unnerved, Saya wrenches the faucet off and grabs a towel. Stumbling across slippery tile, she catches a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror. Long hair hanging drenched around her body, eyes wide pinpricks in a bloodless face. In a chilling flash, a red-smeared hollow-eyed killer superimposes in place, set against a background of bullets and smoke.

Ohgod. Ohgod.

She jerks wildly into her clothes, bursting dripping-haired into the bedroom—where a sudden unfamiliar voice hits her ears, inciting a scream that rebounds through the room like a siren.

She remembers hitting out blindly, sending a steel tray flying into the air, clattering across the floor. Remembers a crisp black uniform, a pair of uncertain hands reaching for her, a voice stammering apologies, saying things she doesn't understand.

All that is superseded by a million eyes, dark and bottomless, frozen on her in a perpetual glare.

She feels those eyes boring into her as she relives her Vietnam spree, as she hacks and slashes everything to bits. Limbs and torsos littering the bloody ground. Fire and screams engulfing her, body and sensorium alike.

Her throat tightens until it is impossible to see or breathe, until her only thought, blind and crazed, is to get out of the room, go anywhere but just get away.

The next thing she remembers is being outside the hotel, immersed in traffic and blinding sunshine. But even there, sucking on the warm sticky air, the flashbacks are inexorable, razor shiruken slashing at her mind, ripping her self-control to shreds.

Desperate for escape, she breaks into a run. Feet pounding hard on cement, breath leaving her in shredded separate gasps. A barrage of memories assaults her, inescapable, exploding behind her eyes with an intensity beyond endurance. She can't feel her arms or legs, can't control her movements—stumbling through the market, she dodges crowing vendors and laden carts with the same blindness as her distant field-trip to Hanoi, heart slamming in cannon-ball jolts against her ribs.

And that is precisely when a voice shouts her name—"Saya!"—and she whirls to see Solomon calling out to her, surprisingly pale and lucid amid the heaving crowd…

Just before something massive plows her right off the road, and into a reverberant ocean of blackness.

"Saya? Oh no. Saya, please. Don't start crying."

She's shaking now, hands pressed wet and aching to her face, muffling the sobs that pour out.

Gently, Solomon takes her wrists, prying her hands from her face. "Saya, please. I didn't mean to be harsh with you. But you frightened me so much. And I've already almost lost you enough times. Please, angel. Don't be upset with me."

She shakes her head, forcing the tears back. "It—it's not that, Solomon. Really. I just—"

He draws her closer, tucking her head under his chin. "Please, tell me what's bothering you? I know you did not want to come to Vietnam. All the things you had to see and do in the war; the weight would be too much for anyone. But I wish you'd at least talk to me about it—I only want to help you. I do not want to see you suffer."

She presses her cheek to his chest, seeking solace from the mental havoc in his closeness and warmth. She can't explain where all her fortitude has dissolved to—she can't remember being such a dithering pile of nerves, even during her terrifying spell of amnesia.

The pregnancy, the lifted weight of the war, this new unfamiliar life that's suddenly been granted to her—sometimes it is all too much; almost too overwhelming to handle.

"Angel, please. Tell me what's wrong? What frightened you so much you just left the hotel? I wish you would tell me. I can never understand what sets you off this way."

She can feel the anxiety vibrating through his voice. Peering up at his face, she sees the marks of strain everywhere, across his eyes, on the lines of his mouth. Strange. She recalls, in her brief flashes at the hospital, how perfectly poised he was in front of the doctors. Concerned, always, but so indelibly calm.

She knows that it is only with her that he allows himself this luxury of revelation. Only with her that he is free to pour out all his stymied fear and concern, without pretense or aplomb. In face of his stark anguish, a wave of sympathy overcomes her.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers. "I didn't mean to worry you so much."

He gathers her closer. "It doesn't matter, Saya. I'm just glad you're all right."

"Are you…going to tell Kai and the others about this now?"

"If that is what you wish. Although it might be best not to. Since we are sure you're unharmed, there would not be any point, except causing an unnecessary fuss. For the time being, I just want you to get some rest."

She knows he has a point. Contacting her family about this news, especially when no lasting harm has come of it, would only create unwanted upheaval. Separated by countries and continents, poor Kai would just overreact and Mao's imagination would run wild; the intention wouldn't be worth the turmoil.

"I…all right," she murmurs.

In reply, Solomon lowers his mouth to hers, his kiss infusing her with the giddy hunger of relief. She responds eagerly, grateful for a chance to shut off her mind, immerse herself in this salutary physical sensation. He starts to withdraw, but her fingers tangle in his hair, drawing him closer to renew the contact.

It's a long moment before he can bring himself to pull back. Smoothing her hair, he regards her fondly, but with a palpable longing.

"Give yourself some time to recover first," he murmurs. "The sooner you're well again, the sooner we can pick up where we left off. You know I can't bear spending as much as a night away from you."

She finds herself smiling in turn. "So that's all you missed about me?"

He gives her a wry look. "Of course it is. In fact, if it were upto me, I'd duct-tape your mouth and keep you permanently sedated so I'd at least have a few minutes' peace of mind. You?"

"Mm, I can't stand you either. I wish I'd stayed unconscious longer."

Chuckling, Solomon puts his hands in her hair, stroking it back. Kisses her closed eyelids and flushed cheeks. "God, Saya. It's really gotten so that I can't do without you in any sense, even for a second. But you gave me such a scare with this stunt of yours. Please promise you won't do it again?"

She isn't sure why his tone makes her feel so guilty, as if she's played some sort of childish prank on him, deliberately disrupting his peace of mind rather than suffering a near-breakdown of her own. But his hand is stroking her forehead, soothing, hypnotic, and she can't imagine putting him, or herself, through any further suffering.

Can't imagine anything terrible happening in this moment at all.

"All right. I promise, Solomon."

"Good." He kisses her again, then rises from the bed. "In light of this incident, I took the liberty of making some arrangements for you."

"Arrangements?"

"Yes. It's clear you are in a sadly fragile state of mind at the moment. And I love you too much to risk anything happening to you. For the time being, I would prefer it if you did not go out alone. I want to keep an eye on you, in case this doesn't happen again."

She blinks, "Not... go out alone?"

"Not in my absence, in any case. Anywhere you want to go, please just let me know, and I'll accompany you. At least this way, should you suffer one of your…episodes again, I will be closeby to intervene." Reaching out, he touches her chin. "However, I'm aware that I cannot always remain at your side; so I have arranged for you to be escorted to town by a chauffeur."

"A… chauffeur?"

"That's right. A bodyguard. Someone to accompany you wherever you need to go, whenever I am not present."

"Accompany me? But Solomon, I really don't think this is necessary…"

He frowns faintly. "Would you rather I find you on the streets again, narrowly avoiding speeding traffic?"

"Well, no, but—"

"Than I fail to see the problem. Please, you need to trust me on this, Saya. I only want what is best for you. I do not want to see you getting hurt again."

"Solomon, I don't know what happened to me at the hotel—but I think you might be taking it a little too far. I appreciate your concern, but… I don't need a chauffeur. I'll be fine on my own."

"Of course. Just as you were 'fine' when that car nearly rammed you off the road?"

She feels a surge of anger. "Solomon, please stop talking to me like I'm a child. I'll admit the accident was a close call, but that doesn't mean it'll happen again. I can take care of myself; I've been doing it for years now."

"Have you forgotten that you weren't carrying children back then? You cannot put not only your life at risk, but theirs too. I will not allow that to happen. Putting your own whims before the babies would just be extremely childish and selfish of you."

"I am not being selfish—how can you say such a thing? Of course I care about the babies, but that has nothing to do with needing a bodyguard!"

He shakes his head. "If you think having a bodyguard has nothing to do with protecting our babies, it tells me precisely how disconnected you are from considering their well-being at all."

Her eyes widen, infuriated that he would even suggest such a thing. "What? How dare you! What makes you think I don't care about our daughters—of course I care about them! I'm the one who's carrying them!"

"Then you ought to behave accordingly, Saya."

"You make it sound like I'll be taking deadly risks by going out—like I'll be out there fighting Chiropterans! It isn't the same thing!"

"Saya, no one can irrefutably deny that you are used to a high-risk lifestyle—the kind you used to live during the war. I have fought both with you, and beside you—I've seen it clearly. The rush of the battle, the high you get off adrenaline, all that is still very much a part of your nature. But I cannot allow that reckless side of you to endanger both your welfare and that of our daughters."

"What gives you the right to suggest I'm endangering their welfare?"

"The fact that you flat out refuse to compromise, and cannot even sacrifice a little bit of your freedom, if only for the sake of ensuring their safety."

She bolts upright angrily, "Solomon, stop twisting my words! I'm not insensible of the risks—to any of them—but that doesn't mean I have to be carted around like an invalid!"

Solomon opens his mouth to shout, but visibly controls himself. In a low even voice, he says, "Why are you always so intent on defying me, Saya? If you care about me even a little, you'll do as I ask, even if it's just this once. I will not have you put our children at risk."

"Why are you so convinced I'll be putting them at risk?"

"Because you just did two days ago, is why. And I do not want it happening again. That is one thing I absolutely have to enforce on you as your husband."

"But why can't I just—" A sudden wave of nausea cuts her short. Red spots explode before her eyes. She retches and doubles over, gritting her teeth. There's a stabbing ache in her temples, all across her body.

"Saya?" Solomon's icy expression melts away. He's at her side in an eyeblink, gentle hands on her shoulder. "Angel, what is it? What's the matter?"

"I don't know. I—" She swallows, suppressing bile. "I feel… sick. My head hurts."

He presses a hand to her seething brow. "The medication they gave for your head trauma is wearing off. Please. Just lie back. I'll give you something to tide it over until you're better."

She flails for him blindly. "W-wait! Where are you going?"

"Just to the next room. I'll prepare a hypodermic, something to put you back to sleep. Then I'll see to the other arrangements."

"I just told you I didn't want a chauffeur!"

"In this frame of mind, I cannot take anything you say seriously. Please, Saya, I beg you not to strain yourself this way; you need to rest."

"I need you to listen to me!"

She tries to sit up again. But the world tilts and ripples in a lurid skirl of colors. The smell of all the roses is too strong, too suffocating—she feels bile welling in her throat. Although her first impulse was to shout at Solomon, now she finds herself reaching wildly for his hand, floundering for any sign of comfort amid this turmoil.

"Wh-what's wrong with me?" she rasps. "What's happening?"

He squeezes her hand in both his own. "Please, Saya. Just calm down. You're coming down from the medication. I will give you something to stop the pain; you don't need to worry."

He is gone before she can muster a response, leaving her lying there in a pulsating mass of vertigo.

Saya gnashes her teeth, curling up tightly under the sheets. She has no clue where Solomon has vanished to; lifting her head and calling for him feels like too monumental an effort. Instead, she squeezes her eyes shut, trying to force back each jagged implosion of pain. Her body feels too hot, sticky against the oppressive sheets; clawing through her mind, she cannot find any memory or image that might serve as a distraction from her discomfort.

She wishes she were wearing Haji's bloodstone; the hard icy disk would have felt delicious against her sweaty skin.

Haji...

Haji.

Dizzy sleep comes only when she recalls shifting spots of sunlight between tree branches, the rough wooden texture of a bench beneath her skull, and the comforting weight of a cold bandaged hand on her humid brow.

Your hand's cold.

It feels good