Broken

"What do we do?" Finn asked, his normal smile replaced by worry.

Stork sighed. "Its not like he's going to pop back in here and be perfectly all right, you know…idiot." He muttered under his breath.

"But…he's Aerrow, right? Aerrow's always okay…right?" Junko asked, his innocent tone adding an urgent insistence to the words. "Aerrow can't be…uh…"

Finn exhaled loudly. "It doesn't matter! There's got to be something we can do to fix him! Aerrow can't stay like this, it's gonna kill him!"

Piper sat at the table with her head pillowed in her arms, listening to the conversation. At Finn's comment, she looked up sharply. "What are you going to do, Finn? Huh? Aerrow's been through more in the past few months than you or I can even imagine!"

Finn stood, knocking his chair over. "Don't you think I know that? But letting him sit in his room all day and night isn't helping things. I'm sorry to say it, but we have a war to fight, if you haven't noticed! And we don't have time for this!"

"I can't believe you said that!"

"Look at the big picture, Piper! I care about him as much as you do. Hell, he's my best friend! But we need a leader now, Piper. And whatever they did to him messed him up bad."

"We have to help him!"

"We will! But we need to fight now, Piper, and he can't. He can't lead the fight when he can't do anything but sit in his room in the dark. They broke him. I don't know how, but they broke him." Finn shouted back. "He's...broken." he choked out.

Silence fell.

In his quarters, Aerrow curled up tighter on the floor. Squeezed his eyes shut against the painful truth of those words.

He's broken.

OOO

Author's Note: Total word count: 300

Okay, here's where the hate mail starts. Now, before I get a flood of evil emails, remember that the whole purpose of this fic was to break Aerrow.

And I do have a sort of light at the end of the tunnel. I'm tempted to write a continuation on this fic, chronicling how Aerrow sets back in with his old squad after the events that took place in this story…but if I do that, I warn you that it will probably have the same dark overtones as this, and will probably leave you with a bitter taste in your mouth, as I am sure this one has.

But again, that was my intention with this fic. Cruel…huh?

Regardless, let me know what you guys would like me to do.

Oh yes… I almost forgot. I am so sorry that I haven't been replying to reviews lately, but that shall change, starting now! From this chapter on, (to include anything else I write), I shall reply to each an every review, just like I used to.

And now, with that, it is time to start updating my other depressing fic, Conversations.

Ta!