Authors Note: I wanted to say thank you to everyone who has given me a favorite or a follow so far. It makes me smile every time I get that notification so I really appreciate the support from you all. If you have a spare minute and are inclined to leave a review, I'd appreciate that too. I'm only a few chapters ahead of what I've posted and I'd love to see what you think so far so I can fix it going forward if need be.

Onto the more serious stuff...this chapter is where some of the warnings from the front page kick in. You're going to find talk of rape, pedophilia, and suicidal thoughts. I didn't take it lightly writing it but tried to make it as easy on my readers as possible in terms of wording. So again, if you're not comfortable reading about those subjects, this is probably where you should get off the story-train.

Chapter 16

There were shadows behind her, striking forward at her. She cried out in pain and fell forward, certain that she was going to be killed. She recognized the cruel laughter from Jolynn and Mercy, the scathing last words from Hilde, and so many other people she had tried to put behind her. She saw the faces of her adopted parents in front of her, saw them ripped away from her again.

She saw Duo turn his back on her and walk away from her desperate pleas for him to come back. There were those voices again, whispering about how she was unloveable. They were laughing about how even her only blood relative didn't want to be around her. Those words ripped away the strength she had built up, stripped away everything she had worked so hard to develop in the past year.

How many more times would she have to lose everyone she cared about? How many more times would she be left alone? How much more could she take before she shattered beyond repair?

It was down in that darkness that she felt herself enveloped by another presence, one that silently shielded her from everything on the outside. She folded herself inside of it, she could smell him all around her. The scent was so subtle, something earthy that made her want to keep inhaling. There was something so warm, so secure about him that made her want to snuggle deeper, made her want to stay there forever. She couldn't tell if the demons from her past were still behind her, for some reason it didn't matter anymore.

She knew that feeling...she had felt it that first night at Quatre's. It felt like she had come home.

Jana felt herself waking up, clinging desperately to the final threads of her dreams from the night before but they slipped away from her too quickly. She kept her eyes closed, turning into the pillow and catching the scent all over again. With a start, she opened her eyes and realized she was lying on his bed in her clothes from yesterday. There was a blanket over her, Domino curled up on the bed next to her, his side rising and falling slightly.

Carefully, so not to wake the cat, Jana slipped out of the bed and pulled her last clean set of clothes from her bag, changing quickly before moving silently into the bathroom. A quick scrub up and she hesitantly walked into the living room. Wufei had folded the blanket he had slept under and set it neatly on the back of the couch but he wasn't in the room. "I'm back here." She heard him call from the second bedroom.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to fall asleep like that last night," Jana immediately apologized. "I don't remember walking back to your room, I must have been more tired than I thought."

Wufei paused, setting the weight he had been lifting on the floor. "That's because you didn't. You were sound asleep before the movie was over. I dozed off for awhile as well. I thought about letting you sleep on the couch but I told Quatre that you could have my bed and I don't like going back on my word so I moved you. What time is your flight back?"

"Not until eleven."

"We've got a few hours. Do you mind if I finish up in here? I'll make you some breakfast before you go."

"Do you want me to leave you alone?"

Wufei shrugged and flipped on his treadmill, starting off at a walk and picking up his pace to an easy jog. "You're welcome to stay if you want. I won't be talking much."

Jana glanced around the room. It was a small room, the walls and floors the same as the rest of the apartment. Wufei had put down a large area rug and had the different equipment set up around the room. She sat on the edge of the weight machine and picked up the smallest of the free weights on the floor, lifting it up with a gasp of effort. Quatre and Trowa had bought her the small weights that Iria had suggested but she hadn't done any work with them. She hadn't exercised at all outside of her required physical education class. Wufei watched her silently before stopping the treadmill and opening the closet. "I was getting ready to donate these, they've been catching dust for years." He handed her two three pound weights and quickly guided her through the proper technique before going back to his jog.

Jana kept up with the motion, the weights were almost identical to the ones sitting in her room back on L4. For the life of her she couldn't understand why Wufei had them in his apartment, he was obviously used to working out with much heavier weights. Even after a few minutes with the small ones she felt her arms getting sore and she had to pause. God she was pathetic compared to him.

He dropped back to a walk. "Pace yourself," he advised. "Is this the first time you've done this?"

Jana nodded, setting them down and rubbing her arm. "Take a minute and do another set if you're up for it. You don't want to hurt yourself."

She took a few breaths and started up again, finding a rhythm with the thud of his feet hitting the treadmill. She didn't care about working out but it was pleasant being in the room with him, going through the motions. Eventually she did have to set the weight down, watching Wufei finish his workout.

He wasn't lying when he warned her he would be focused. His eyes gazed straight ahead, occasionally glancing down at the display in front of him. There wasn't any music, any background noise of any kind, it was just him listening to his steps, focusing on his own body.

He brought himself down to a walk and finally looked back over at her again. "Hungry?" He asked.

"Starving," Jana admitted.

"Like I said, I can make you something or if you'd rather we could go out. There's a diner a few doors down that I go to before work or class some mornings."

Jana smiled sheepishly. "What's the chance you'd want to make congee?"

Wufei switched off the machine, hiding his smile behind a towel until he could exercise more control over his facial features again. "It won't take long."

"Can I help?" Jana asked suddenly. "I know you said you'd show me how sometime but I assumed you were just saying it to be polite."

"It's not difficult," Wufei tossed the towel in the hamper in the bathroom on their way back to the kitchen.

Within fifteen minutes, Wufei had a pot on the stove and had started rinsing rice in his sink. He had Jana slicing ginger and green onions next to him, explaining the steps. "It's white rice?" Jana asked.

"Jasmine." Wufei checked the pot and poured the rice into the boiling chicken stock. He walked her through the rest of the recipe.

"What now?" Jana asked, eyeing the neat piles of chopped up ingredients.

"We wait. It'll be ready in an hour or so. Are you thirsty? I've got juice and water in the refrigerator."

"Sure, I can get the cups."

Wufei wasn't sure how it happened. Somehow as he stepped over to the refrigerator, she turned to walk to the shelf where he kept his glasses. Instead, she walked right against him, right into his arms. They wrapped around her purely on reflex, or so he wanted to believe. He felt the blood rush to his face but as much as he knew he needed to, he couldn't make himself step back.

God she felt so perfect, so soft against him. He was trying not to move but couldn't help but inhale the scent of her hair, some kind of fruity scent that he couldn't place.

It felt like he had been waiting his entire life for that moment.

She wasn't moving away. Why wasn't she moving away?

He heard the soft sigh, felt her head rest against his shoulder. He knew what he wanted to do. He knew what every thought in his body was driving him to do but he forced himself to stay still, to keep holding her. He couldn't stop himself from pulling her closer against him, as much as he tried to resist the urge.

Jana wasn't sure how it happened, one second she was turning to pick up the glasses and the next she found herself staring at Wufei's chest, his arms wrapping around her, holding her softly against him. She wasn't sure how it happened but she wasn't going to complain. It was exactly where she wanted to be, exactly what she had dreamed of for so long.

She was afraid to move, afraid to make a sound, afraid to breathe, afraid to do anything that would break the connection. There was something so domestic, being in his arms with a pot simmering on the stove. Here was everything she had been craving her entire life. She was afraid to look up, afraid to meet his gaze, afraid of what she might see in his eyes. She was terrified that everything she was feeling wasn't going to be reciprocated. She was afraid that he was too polite to step back and end the contact.

It would crush her if it came to that. Jana sighed and leaned forward, risking everything for just a little more contact. She wasn't sure if it was her imagination or if he did actually tighten his hold slightly. He was so solid, the feeling of his body against hers was comforting in a way she hadn't expected.

Staring down at the ground, she saw when Domino walked into the room, sitting to the side of them, his head tilted to the side as he gazed at the two of them. She wasn't sure how long they stood there, not moving, not looking at each other.

It was the hissing from the pot on the stove that finally broke through their silence. "I need to stir it or it's going to burn," Wufei said, his voice almost a whisper.

"I'll get those cups," Jana replied, her voice just as low.

They didn't talk about it. The embrace hung over them as they finished cooking and ate their breakfast. Wufei settled back on the couch with the newspaper, not reading it and watched Jana play with the cat on the floor. Reluctantly he glanced at his watch. "I need to get you back to the spaceport soon. Are you packed?"

"Mostly, I just have a few things left to toss in my bag." Jana got up and left him behind to throw his head back against the couch and wipe his hand down his face. How had it gotten that far? How had his emotions gotten the better of him?

"Wufei? I'm ready."

He stood up and pulled their two jackets from the closet. He had to set her free, let her find someone her own age with less complications. "Jana...about earlier." She looked up at him, the look in her eyes fearful, as if she was already prepared for his rejection. He couldn't do it. "I just...I don't..." He blew out a breath in frustration. "I don't know what to say. I'm sorry."

"For that?"

"For not having any answers right now." Wufei pulled out his wallet, found one of the business cards he carried around, and using a pen from the hall table quickly wrote on the back of it. "Here."

Jana looked down at it silently and then back up at him. "It has my email address on it and I wrote my cell number on the back. If you want to and if you have the time, I'd like to hear from you. Up until now I've contacted you through Quatre's home line, I think I'd like to take it to a more private connection if it's something you're comfortable with."

She smiled. "I'd like that. Thank you. Take good care of Domino for me, okay?"

"Of course. About earlier...I'm not sorry. I probably should be but I'm not. Does that make you uneasy?"

"Not at all. Thank you for inviting me over here."

"I'm sorry you missed your beach trip."

"I'm not."

Duo sneezed and wiped his nose on the dirty sleeve of the flannel shirt he was wearing. He had been hitching for days, walking when he couldn't find a ride. He had been heading east as quickly as he could. He was out of drugs, out of booze, out of money, and out of food. He couldn't remember the last time he had showered or taken a brush to his hair. He had caught a glimpse of his own face in the mirror at a truck stop bathroom and couldn't recognize himself anymore.

He barely slept. The previously night he had curled up under a traffic bridge, leaning up against some large rocks that blocked the worst of the wind. It wasn't just flashbacks from the war anymore. They came and went but the memories from his childhood on L2 hurt him the most.

There were so many of them that he hadn't told anyone. The other pilots knew he was a street kid on L2, they knew he was an orphan. He let them imagine what they wanted to with that information but it would never come close to reality. He had never told Hilde he had been with another man before, he was never going to tell her that he was six years old when it happened the first time.

First time, not the only and definitely not the last. The only things more common on L2 than diseases were pedophiles.

The first time had been rape. It was painful and humiliating and he had cried out for help. The man had found Duo rummaging in a dumpster behind a local diner. He had good luck there in the past finding discarded food.

The man was throwing away bags of garbage when he spotted Duo in the space between the two industrial sized bins. He grabbed him, pulled him out and yanked down his pants, his other hand working the fly on his own pants. He stunk like stale cigarettes and the hot oil from a deep fryer. Duo frantically tried to escape but a young boy wasn't any match for a man in his forties.

God it had hurt. He had never felt anything so painful before in his short life.

The second time had been rape too. A group of teenaged boys had come upon him and Solo and they hadn't been able to fight their way out of it. After that, Duo had made the decision that if he was going to have to keep sleeping with people he hated, it would be on his terms, and he was going to make them pay.

It would have been laughable, him trying to demand money for sex, if it hadn't been for Ray. He was an old bum who lived in the alleyway between a pawn shop and a bailbond building. He had one leg, the other had been shot off in some war. He screamed at most people who dared walk by him but he had a soft spot for the street kids who ran errands for him.

He also had a giant mutt of a dog named Jake. Jake would attack anyone who came too close to Ray and was trained to seek and attack. Duo, Solo, and a few other kids in their gang convinced Ray to act like a pimp, an enforcer for anyone who thought they would get away with a freebie. It worked for the most part. The gang was better off than they ever had been up until that point and Ray was happy with the extra money that came his way. It was almost worth the pain and the pride he had thrown away.

Then another plague hit. Three members of his gang died, even more than that fell sick. When Solo died the gang fell apart. Duo had been desperate enough to try and find Ray but all he found was his body in the alley being eaten by his dog. There wasn't any money left, even pedophiles stayed away from the streets when there was sickness spreading around.

It was desperation and hunger that drove them all to the Maxwell Church. Most of the kids got adopted out. He was the one returned like a defective toaster, tossed out like an ugly shirt or a bruised apple. Father Maxwell and Sister Helen kept him out of pity.

Well, maybe not pity. Maybe it was something more, not like that helped in the end. Just like everyone he cared about, they left him.

No, it was better for him to be on his own. It was better for him not to depend on anyone but himself anymore. No more girlfriend. No more friends. No more sister. He was going to stay down on the Earth for the rest of his life.

As short as he was expecting that to be.

Jana walked back in the front door with a sigh. There was far too much going through her mind for her to deal with all at once. How was she supposed to explain the changes that happened over the weekend. How could she when she wasn't sure what to call him anymore. They had stepped over the line of friendship, but just barely. "I'm back," she called out.

There wasn't any response. She assumed they were in the Winner Industry offices and started walking upstairs only to find her guardians locked together in a tight embrace, kissing each other furiously. Trowa had Quatre pressed up against the wall, his hand threaded through the blonde boy's hair. "Oh!" Jana dropped her bag, starting down the stairs again.

They broke apart quickly, Quatre's cheeks flushed red. "I'm sorry, we didn't expect you for another hour and..." He looked to Trowa for support.

"I'm sorry if we embarrassed you," Trowa finished. "How was your trip?"

She prayed she wasn't blushing. "It was a lot of fun. The lectures were really interesting and I got to meet a few of his co-workers."

"How was Wufei?"

She felt her cheeks heat up. So much for subtlety. "He's doing well. I got to see part of his presentation and the room was full. We found a cat after dinner that he brought home. I need to watch him when he's traveling for work. Are you okay with Domino coming here?"

"Of course. Wufei has a pet now? That's different."

"I think he did it mostly for me," Jana admitted. She didn't miss the look Quatre and Trowa shared. "It's not like that."

"Jana, neither of us is going to judge you for wanting to be with him or him with you," Trowa said gently.

"We're not together," she insisted.

"Jana, you've got stars in your eyes. If you want to keep your feelings private, we'll drop the subject but there's one loose end I need to ask you to handle on your own, one way or another." Quatre attempted to smooth out his clothing discreetly.

"What do you mean?"

"The boy you've been seeing, if you're invested in someone else don't you think you owe it to him to be honest about what you're feeling?"

Taegan...she hadn't thought about him since the last time she had seen him. That alone was enough to tell her Quatre was right.

He came over the day after they got back from their beach trip. "How were the lectures?" Taegan asked, dropping a quick kiss on her mouth.

"Really interesting. I got some great notes out of some of them."

"I was hoping you'd say they were boring and you made a horrible mistake and you wished that you would have gone with us after all." Taegan sat down on the edge of her bed.

She opened her mouth, ready to play along, ready to tell him again how much she wished that she could do both only to find that the white lie wouldn't come out. Instead, she sat down next to him, slightly surprised when he didn't drape his arm around her shoulder to pull her closer to him like he normally did when they were together. His hands were on his legs and he was staring down at them. "How was the lake?" Jana ventured finally.

"So awesome. We had bonfires on the beach, went swimming and hiking, and went to a little festival in town the last night we were there."

Jana's gaze finally rested on a bracelet of white, black, and red beads on his wrist. "Did you win that there?" She asked.

He quickly covered it, moving his hand away a moment later when he realized it didn't matter. "No, Emi did."

"It looks good on you," Jana ventured.

"Yeah, I guess it does. I like it. Look, Jana...the two of us spent a lot of time together out there. We didn't do anything, I'm not that kind of guy, but it made me realize a lot. I feel like I got closer to her in a weekend than you've let me get with you in all the time we've been together. It wasn't until she and I started talking that I realized how much was missing from our relationship and it got me thinking. I started feeling like you were dating me because you liked being paired off more than you cared for me. Am I wrong?"

"I wouldn't have gone out with you if I didn't like you," Jana protested.

"But you didn't care for me like I cared for you, did you?"

She didn't miss the past tense he was using. What was the point in lying anymore. "I kept hoping I would," she said. "I liked you so much as a friend and I assumed it would come in time."

"That's what I figured. This thing with the lectures was never about the lectures, was it?"

"I can't talk to you about this."

"Sure you can. We were friends before, we can go back to it if you want."

"How did you figure it out?" Jana asked. "I never talked about him."

"That was it. You would mention him so briefly and you'd look like there was so much more to the story than you were willing to tell anyone else. He's that important to you?"

She nodded miserably. If they were breaking up, she had nothing to lose by being honest with him now. "Are you two together?" Taegan asked after a pause.

"I wouldn't have done that to you," Jana insisted. "I would never cheat on you."

"Emotionally I think you did but I guess we're both guilty of that. Friends?"

"Friends," Jana gave him the strongest smile she could. "So you and Emi?"

"We're going to give it some time. She cares about you too and neither of us wanted you to get hurt. I was pretty sure you were going to see it as an easy way out of a relationship you weren't all that invested in to begin with."

Jana winced. "That's harsh."

"But?"

"But true," she admitted with a sigh.

"You asked me over to break up with me, didn't you?" She nodded reluctantly. "So you and this other guy?"

"I don't know. He's older than me and a friend of my brother. It's hard to tell what he's thinking but what he was able to tell me this weekend makes me think we may be getting on the same page."

"He'd be lucky to have you," Taegan patted her knee awkwardly. "Want to go for a walk?"

"Sure."

"So?" Trowa asked, kissing his way down Quatre's neck.

"Mmm." Quatre peered out the window, staying in the shadow of the curtains. "That feels good."

"Are they still together?" Trowa slid his hand over the front of Quatre's pants, chuckling as the other boy arched into the caress.

"I think they're through." Quatre rotated his hips back against Trowa's.

"Why would you say that?" Trowa murmured, going to work on Quatre's belt.

"They're walking around the yard with about two feet of space between them and he has his hands in his pockets. They're looking everywhere but at each other."

"Do you think anything happened between her and Wufei this weekend?" Trowa pulled Quatre over to their bed.

"Is now really the time to be thinking about that?" Quatre unbuttoned Trowa's shirt and eased it off of his shoulders. "Are you asking if they spent their night like this?"

Trowa let out a quiet hiss as Quatre straddled his lap, carefully unfastening his belt and unbuttoning his pants. "Do you think they'd move that fast?"

"No. I think something happened but not this. Guess we're not going to know anytime soon."

Trowa flipped Quatre over onto his back and devoured his mouth until they were both breathless. "Are you okay with her going back over there?"

"It's the only way I'm going to get you naked without worrying about being overheard," Quatre teased. "There's no point in rushing to a decision. Right now, I've got much better ideas in my head."

"Like?" Trowa unbuttoned Quatre's shirt and started kissing his way down his chest.

Quatre inhaled sharply. "That's a good start."