So here's the next chapter. it's only a little late. yay! please keep reviewing; reviews help me write you know. ;)

37: Waking Up

I woke up slowly. Carefully. I could remember waking up before in this 'hospital' room. I remember some doctor had been there saying how happy and glad they were that I had made it. They had said that my fever had broken and was going down, and my hysterical, delusional screaming had stopped as well.

As soon as he'd told me all that, I had fallen right back into unconsciousness.

As I slowly opened my eyes I had the brief curiosity towards whether it had been my sickness, or the embarrassment of having screamed in my sleep that had made me black out again before. But I suppose it didn't matter, and I could always blame it on being sick.

It probably did make a difference about what I was screaming for.

As I blankly stared up at the ceiling without really seeing it, I tried to remember what I had dreamed, so I might know what I had screamed. But I couldn't really remember anything. It was all very blank. But hot. Definitely hot. And not quite blank. It was hazy; like the way things shimmer and shift out of focus when they are so very very hot.

Wow, who knew that when you had a life-threatening fever things felt hot?

"You're awake."

I turned to the voice. It was familiar...but in the haze of my mind I couldn't remember who it belonged to.

"Oh it's you." I said with a hoarse voice. Then I coughed once. Yeah; I had never had a drink in my whole life. That's what it felt like.

Yuri nodded softly. She looked sad and unhappy. Why? Was something wrong? With Deiru maybe? Had someone else got to him once I left the room? Where had Korinna gotten to?

I started to feel panicked. Had someone hurt one of the babies? After all the trouble I went to to help them had they gotten hurt? Were they ok?

I tried to sit up, but my arms felt bone-less, and I couldn't even feel my legs.

"Is Deiru..." I started to ask, but I fell back onto the bed panting softly.

"No no! Deiru and Korinna are fine. It's you that had people worried." Yuri quickly said to reassure me.

People were worried...about me? These people? That didn't seem quite right.

I didn't say anything in answer, so Yuri fidgeted nervously beside me. I had nearly died I think. That was what the doctor had said right? Had Yuri been worried about me? Why? We weren't friends. We never even talked to each other. Why had she been worried about me? That didn't make much sense.

"I felt...." I looked at Yuri in surprise. What was she trying to say?

She sighed softly then looked me straight in the eye. I'd never noticed how black her eyes were before. Not the creepy kind of black either; the black like a dark starry-night type black. Pretty.

"I've been feeling bad about the way we treated you. And after what you've been going through and been doing for us. I'm really very sorry."

She said it very fast. Like she had to get it out there quick before she lost the words or before something else happened.

She felt sorry? I could easily see that this really had been bothering her. Now that wasn't good.

"Hey, I wasn't a perfect gem myself either. You don't have to feel that bad." I protested. I edged upward, so that I was leaning on my elbows. It was hard and a little painful, but exercise was probably something I needed right now.

"But I didn't even try to talk to you or to help you or anything and look whats happened!" Yuri exclaimed.

"Oh come on. Now you know bad things happen in battles, and you didn't plan on that happening at all. My being dumb enough to fall off of a house was not your fault." I scoffed lightly.

"But if we had talked more then maybe somehow it would be different."

"You know, 'if' is a really big word for only having two letters." I teased lightly. She didn't seem to care for the joke. Maybe she didn't understand. Japanese words were written in Kanji. So they didn't spell things with ABC's and such.

"It's my fault. I'm so sorry Kiara." she sniffed slightly.

Oh come now. She shouldn't be taking all this on herself. I would be the first to admit that I was a royal bitch on my first day here. It was ridiculous trying to blame both my injuries and our strained relationship on herself.

"Hey Yuri that's not fair. You can't take all the blame on yourself. Didn't anyone ever teach you to share?" I whined lightly. She smiled softly, and I grinned back at her.

"I still should have tried to talk to you more." Yuri said looking self-reproachful.

"Oh right! I really wanted to know what language we're speaking, and how I magically know it. Tell me about it would you?" I said settling back in my pillows. For some reason, my question made her blush a little.

"I, ah, don't know how you can speak it so easy. When I first got here I couldn't understand a word." Yuri admitted still blushing slightly.

"Did you have to learn everything on your own?" I asked curious. She blushed even more.

"Ah, no." she looked away, and my curiosity grew a lot more.

"Tell me!" I begged loudly. She began to blush some more and tried to change the subject. I had lots of fun teasing her and trying to figure out what the secret was.

"Ok ok ok! Be a spoil-sport and keep it all to yourself." I said pretending to grumble. "Tell me about that Nakia woman. You two had a little feud going didn't you?" I said grabbing an apple that was on the table beside me. I was supposed to eat so I could get better.

"Who said that?" Yuri asked startled.

"Servant people. You know how rumors are." I said easily without giving even a hint that I had eavesdropped on private royal conversations.

"Well it wasn't like a real feud. We couldn't fight openly. She was the queen after all."

Yuri started to tell me about her life here. It was really fascinating. Just like a fantasy movie. Nakia had brought Yuri here so she could use the Japanese in a curse to kill the princes. Kail had apparently saved Yuri for no reason other than wanting to annoy Nakia. Kail and Yuri hadn't gotten along at first though it seemed like Kail had somehow helped Yuri learned the language here. Must be his magic or something. Yuri told me about how she was unable to go home, and so she'd had to stay here under protection of Kail so she could be safe. She'd pretended to be his concubine since saying he was protecting her from the queen wasn't an option. It seemed like Yuri and Kail had developed a relationship pretty easily though it took years for either of them to commit.

I listened to the long and winding tale while slowly eating two apples. The more she talked, the more awed I was. This was Oscar worthy. I mean how the hell had she done so much in, like six years? They'd uprooted a queen, started a rebellion in Egypt, defeated both Egypt and someplace called Mitanni, had a wedding, lost quite a few friends, and dealt with bitchy court women who tried to get Kail to marry them.

When Yuri stopped talking, hours had passed. She told the stories well. With humility even though she had done so much. I clapped loudly when she was done, and she blushed.

"Please please PLEASE, tell me I can use all that when I get home! I mean that would make one hell of a movie. Can you say, Oscars for story-line, drama, adventure, romance? And of course for the lead actress, naturally me. I mean we're about the same height and all."

She blushed some more. You'd have thought that as a queen, she would be used to complements and flattering, but she was so humble. She acted like she was still that young school girl she had been before she had come here. The only thing that seemed to have changed, was that she had gained more maturity from all of this. She wasn't a arrogant queen at all. In fact, she was real sweet. After all our talking during the last few hours, I found that I liked her. If we had met at school or something, we would have been good friends I'm sure.

Once she was done telling me her story, she wanted to know about me.

"Well you know. Same old Cinderella story told the thousandth time." I shrugged.

"But you're a singer right? A popular one?" she asked wide-eyed.

"Yeah, but you're a queen. There's not much royalty in our time, so you're cooler than I am." I grinned at her.

She laughed. "But still, tell me more about you." she insisted.

I sighed. "I grew up on a ranch in Tennessee. I could ride a horse before I could walk on my feet."

I closed my eyes as I remembered growing up. "The hills were so green. So beautiful and continuous. You could watch the stars every single night and feel the wind. There were thousands of trees and places for swimming or hiking or running. It was beautiful. And perfect."

"It sounds really nice." Yuri said with a sigh. I nodded.

"But every place has its bad points. Winters were horrible. So much damn snow. And bugs in the summer. I learned to stay under water for a long time simply so I could avoid all the damn bugs."

Yuri laughed with me, and we both agreed that bugs were miserable horrid things. We talked about horses a little too. She seemed to have learned a bit about horses since coming here, and I was glad to be able to speak about them again.

"When you get to NY and LA most people think horses are smelly or something. I can't remember the last time I was able to speak about things like this with someone." I said sighing. I had met some awesome people in the few years that I was a star. But I'd also met some of the most vapid, annoying, shallow people on earth. It was a toss-up of who I'd met more of.

"What was it like? Meeting movie stars?" Yuri asked.

"Some were fabulous. I met Meryl Strep once; she is the nicest person. And so talented. I swear her house should be filled with awards. And Tim Allen is so funny."

We talked about some of the movie and music stars that she had heard of, and I told her what I knew about Japan's new stars.

"You're lucky. You've gotten a lot of fame in such a short time." Yuri commented. I nodded in agreement. I had always thought that.

"It's crazy. I was just walking down the streets in NY when I heard some people playing their instruments. I was feeling a little low, so I decided to act crazy. I was singing and dancing to "Stupid Girls" by P!nk and suddenly, this woman was telling me about all sorts of wonderful career options. A few months later, my debut album is topping the charts, I've got a tour planned for the summer, and talk show appearances scheduled all over the place. After the tour I was in two movies, and then I had another album and then another movie and some other odd jobs, and then I was on tour again. I was headed back to the States when I got sucked here from Tokyo."

"All that because you were singing on the street?" Yuri asked eyes wide.

"Yeah well Connie, my manager and discoverer, is a miracle working. She said that when she saw me she thought I was funny, talented, fresh, and...oh yeah, a shock of energy." I said trying to remember exactly what the woman had told me the first time I'd gone into her office for an interview.

"That's amazing. I thought it could take years for something like that to happen."

"Yeah. I guess I was lucky or something." I mumbled softly. Yuri noticed the change in my attitude. I wonder what she thought about my swiftly changing moods.

"What's wrong?"

"It's just that...you know. I went back home twice after I got into 'show biz'. I didn't keep in touch much at all. I was stupid in that, and I may never see them again." I whispered softly. I saw that her eyes mirrored some of my sadness. As much as she might love her husband and her life here, she had left a life, a family behind. She had to really miss them too.

"You were busy. It's not really your fault. You just got caught up in everything. I'm sure they understood." she said trying to reassure me. Her kind words made me feel worse and more sorry that she had lost people who were important to her.

"No. It was my fault. I was scared to go home. I avoided everyone there. I was running away and using my new work as an excuse." I could feel her curious and confused gaze. Instead of answering with words, I reached over to the table beside the bed I was in. When the doctors had begun their work on me, they had removed my torn clothes and anything that was in the way. I picked up one of the things they took off now. It was a chain necklace that I wore every single day and almost never took off.

I held up the chain and silently handed it to Yuri. She accepted the necklace softly. It was a plain chain. Hanging off of it were two small metal objects.

Tags. Dog-tags.

It was easy to tell what they were and what they came from. I could see Yuri's concerned frown as she saw the name on the dog-tags. My father's name.

"He's...." her voice trailed off.

"He went to the war. He'd always come home before, but this time...." I swallowed harshly. "All they sent me were his tags, a medal, and a letter of sympathies. And a jar of ashes."

"I'm sorry Kiara." Yuri whispered softly.

I shrugged. "He loved his job. He loved knowing that he was defending his home and country. When he died, I couldn't stay home. I didn't want to deal with the pity. Pity is annoying so I left it behind."

I lied. I told her I ran from their pity. In truth, I had run from their pity, but I'd also run because if I had stayed there, seen my friends and all the places where he and I had been together, it would have broken me. I left because my heart was breaking to stay. But she didn't need to know that. She didn't need to think I was weak and pathetic. Instead I'd let her think I was a bitch who didn't want my friends' support.

"So there's another war?" Yuri asked softly.

I closed my eyes sharply. Images of ash and smoke, the smell of fire, the sound of screaming, crying and crashing buildings momentarily overrode my senses.

"There was a terrorist attack on the World Trade center in NY. The Twin Towers were both hit by airplanes and crashed. There was also an attack on the Pentagon. There was a fourth plane that was headed for Washington DC, but the passengers tried to retake the plane. No passenger on any of the planes survived. It was September 11th, 2001. President Bush launched the War on Terrorism and sent people into Afghanistan. People think the war will be ending soon." I finished softly.

Yuri's black eyes held shock and she was covering her mouth with her hands. Whether she knew a lot about the Towers or not, crashing four airplanes and starting a war was big news. Besides, she probably did know about the Twin Towers. They had been the tallest buildings in the world for about a year.

For a while we didn't talk. She was thinking through what I had said, and I was trying to ignore the memories. I decided the thing to do now was to take both of our minds off of what was happening in the future.

"Hey, you ever heard of 'The Water-Buffalo Song'?"

About an hour later I had moved on from teaching Yuri silly songs, and we were joking and laughing. She asked me to actually sing sometime, and I told her I would consider. I asked if I could learn to use a sword, and she said she didn't mind. We were having fun, acting just like girls who hung out together even though she was a few years older than me.

It was nice, I discovered. To have a friend here in the B.C. ages. I was glad we could get along.

yay! they are friends now. isn't that nice? tell me how long you think it'll last in a review!