Author's Note: Hey there everyone! So, Grandma Fa is one of my favorite characters in Mulan, and I'm really irritated that I'm having trouble giving her a place in this story. Anyway, I tried incorporating her in this chapter a little. Please leave a review and let me know what you think!

Chapter Fifty Three: Broken

I yawn as I collect the eggs from the chicken coop, placing them in my basket. I missed this, the simplicity of farm life. Shang's right: I'm a country girl at heart.

Once all of the eggs have been collected from the nest boxes, I walk back to the house, opting to enter through the kitchen door instead of the front. I step inside and am about to announce my presence when I hear Mother's voice coming from the next room over, the dining room.

"What are we supposed to do with her, Zhou?"

I should walk away. This is a conversation I'm not meant to hear. But if I inherited Father's stubbornness, I also inherited Grandma's habit of eavesdropping. So, putting my stealth training to good use, I edge silently towards the doorway which separates the kitchen from the dining room, peeking like a child around the doorframe. I see my family kneeling around the dining table.

Father sighs. "We've been over this, Li. Mulan just needs time. She'll be fine."

"You say she'll be fine, yet she has woken up screaming every night for the past week," Mother counters.

She's right. It seems that dreaming of Meixiu once has suddenly allowed her to invade every one of my nightmares and thoughts. Every night is the same nightmare, and even though I know the outcome at the beginning of the dream, I still urge myself to run faster, because part of me is sure that being just a little quicker will save her. The terror the nightmare brings has not changed either. When I wake up screaming during the night I am just as frightened as I was the first time.

"We don't know what she's been through these past two years, Li. She's processing," Father states, doing his best to seem sure of the words he is saying.

In truth, I think Father might be the most worried about me. Every night, he comes into my room. I pretend to be sleeping, and he stands there over my bed, checking. I don't know what he's checking for. To see if I'm still there, maybe? To see if I'm nightmaring? All I know is he stands at my bedside, his presence looming over me, for a few long moments each night. I also know that when I wake up screaming, he is always there, now. I shoot up in bed, and he gathers my shaking form into his arms, rocking me like a child afraid of a thunderstorm. I feel like I should be embarrassed by the action, but I am glad to have him there. Each night, I go to bed frightened that he might not come to comfort me after my nightmare that night, that he will grow tired of my childishness. I never tell him that though. I don't want to be any more of a burden than I already am.

Mother, however, isn't near as understanding as Father. She is growing fed up with me.

"How long does 'processing' take?" Mother asks, frustrated. "The war is over, Zhou. She needs to move on."

"Enough, Li," Father declares, and I see his calm demeanor begin to slip. He takes a breath to calm himself. "You shouldn't judge something you know nothing about. We don't know what's going on in her head right now. She needs us though, Li. She needs us to be there for her."

I sense the conversation coming to a close, so I back carefully away from the doorframe. Then, turning, I open the kitchen door, stepping outside.

I decide to walk for a little, maybe in the garden.

It seems like the time of ignorant peace is over. That is how it has been since I have come home: ignorant peace. Everyone pretending they don't notice how changed I am. How I flinch at the slightest touch. How I awake every morning looking more tired than when I went to bed. They ignored it because they expected the problem to fix itself. I don't blame them. I expected my nightmares to fix themselves. I thought coming home would make things easier. Like Mother said: The war is over. I can move on.

But the war isn't over, not for me. It's become a part of me, constantly raging inside of my head, coming alive in my nightmares.

I am used to the way Mother and Father argue about me. It has always been like that. I eavesdropped then, too, as a child. I listened to them argue about whether or not something should be done about the fact I came home from town bruised every day. About whether or not it was appropriate for me to be practicing martial arts and swordplay. About whether or not I should be reading constantly, because what good is reading to a woman?

I remember once when I was around eight, I was sitting outside under the magnolia tree. It was a summer evening, and I was not sure what it was Mother and Father were arguing about, but my name had been mentioned quite a few times, and when they began to raise their voices, I ran outside because I didn't want to hear anymore.

Grandma had found me, and when she sat down on the bench, I blurted out the question that had been plaguing me for quite some time: Why do I frustrate Mama and Baba so much? Grandma had hugged me, and she told me that Mother and Father loved each other very much, and they loved me even more. She told me that sometimes, there was just so much love that it exploded, like fireworks.

Those firework arguments always ended the same way. Mother would be pointing out a problem with me or a problem with how I acted, and Father's answer was always the same.

"Mulan is going through a phase. She will grow out of it. We just need to give her time."

That answer frustrated Mother to no end. Father was always reassuring her that I would grow out of my "phase". That one day I would just wake up and be normal. I can see why him saying that I just need time to readjust back from the war would irritate her. Frankly, it irritates me, too. What am I supposed to do, just wait around and hope that a dead little girl stops haunting my dreams?

As always, their argument upsets me and makes me begin to question myself. Is Mother right? Is there something wrong with me? Should I be over the war by now? How long will it take?

I shake my head. This reminds me of that time I broke my arm. That night, Mother and Father fought, and that fight upset me more than any other one I had ever overheard.

I had been thirteen, walking home from the library. I was carrying a book, as I often was. Fu, Niu, and Lei had come out of nowhere, chasing me and cornering me in an alley behind the market. I hadn't noticed until it was too late that they were chasing me there on purpose. From the shadows of the alley, two boys emerged, looking around fifteen or sixteen. I found out later that they were the triplets' cousins, in town visiting. Apparently, they shared their family's communal belief that women should be seen and not heard, and certainly not educated. It had taken very little convincing from the triplets to get the older boys to agree to teach me a lesson I would never forget. The lesson started with fists and kicks but ended with a rock slamming into my left forearm. I'm not sure who threw it.

They ran off after that, leaving me bleeding in the alley. The rock had broken the skin on my arm, and it was bleeding badly. I made it home, though I'm really not sure how. Mother left to fetch the doctor, and I relayed the story to my father before passing out on my bed, father leaning over me, whispering prayers.

I woke up late that night, and every part of me hurt. I noticed that my left forearm was wrapped up tight with bandages, bamboo strips inside of the wrapping keeping the bone in place. I was all alone in my bedroom, so I decided to get up and find my Father. I exited my bedroom and heard voices coming from the dining room. I peeked inside the dining room and eavesdropped on the argument.

-Flashback-

Father, Mother, and Grandma are all in the dining room. Father and Mother are standing, while Grandma sits at the table, watching.

"What are we going to do?" Mother asks Father angrily.

"I'll talk to the boys' parents,'' Father reassures.

"That's never done any good and you know it!"

"Well, what should we do then, Li?"

Mother grabs the book I was bringing back from the library from off the table. I left it there when I came home.

"Those boys would leave Mulan alone if you had never taught her such rubbish!"

"Mulan is going through a phase-" Father begins to say, but Mother cuts him off.

"Phases don't last this long, Zhou! She's not like the other girls!"

"You think I don't know that!" Father shouts. For a moment I'm scared. Father never yells.

"What's wrong with her, Zhou?" Mother asks, sounding forlorn now. "We keep waiting for everything to click for her. We keep waiting for her to…act normal, but it's not happening! If anything it's getting worse with age!" She pauses for a moment, and all three family members look sad.

"The world will never accept her, Zhou," Mother states finally.

I wait for Father to say something, anything, about how she's wrong. That's how arguments between my parents are supposed to go. This is the point where Father says something like "Mulan will be fine" or "It will get better soon".

"I know," he replies, his voice sounding defeated.

'No. No!' I think in my head. 'Don't say that! Please, Father!'

But he said it, and Father is always right.

I begin to cry, and finally, everyone notices me.

"Mulan," Father states quietly, the hand not holding his cane reaching out to me.

"Leave me alone!" I yell, turning and running from the house. Tears blur my vision, and it is dark outside, but I make it to the magnolia tree, crumpling onto the bench. I hear Father arrive a few moments later but refuse to look at him.

"Mulan-"

"I'm broken," I whisper, cutting him off. My long hair hides my face as I stare at my hands, tears streaming down my face.

"The doctor said your arm should heal in eight weeks or so-"

"Not my arm," I interrupt. "My head. It's not right."

"Mulan, honey, there's nothing wrong with you."

I leap up from the bench, angry. How can he say that when seconds ago he was saying the opposite?

"I heard you and Mother! You agreed that I'm not normal!" I yell, whipping myself around to look at him. He tries to say something to calm me down, but I don't give him the chance.

"You think there's something wrong with me!" Tears sting at my eyes, threatening to spill over, but I hold them back. "You're just like everyone else!"

I turn away from him, running as fast as I can. I'm crying again, but I don't care. I run through the gardens, out the front gate. I keep running, not knowing where I'm running to. It doesn't matter though. Nothing matters anymore. Father's faith in me was the only thing that made life bearable, the only reason the arguments never hurt as much as they possibly could. But now that's gone. I thought he was different, that he sort of accepted the fact that I am strange. But it was a lie. A big, stupid lie! He just put up with me because he hoped I would turn into something else.

I stop running as I near the top of a grassy hill. I've been here before, with Mushu and Melei. I sit on the ground, my knees drawn up to my chest, and sob.

-End Flashback-

I stayed on that hill, crying, until the sun began to rise. Then I tiredly found my way home. I never spoke about the argument again with anyone, and no one brought it up. It didn't escape me that Father never tried to deny anything that I accused him of that night, and I noticed how, after that, I grew a little more distant from my family. The broken arm scared them all, and after it happened, Father was adamant about making sure I stayed away from danger. Specifically, away from the triplets. Of course, the only way to do that was to keep me out of the village, and, being rebellious and teenage, that ticked me off to no end. I felt they were treating me like a baby, and I clashed with Father about it multiple times.

-Flashback-

I pull my shoes on and run for the door. Maybe if I'm quick enough, no one will notice-

"Mulan, where are you going?" Father asks.

I sigh, turning away from the door. "I was going to find Mushu and Melei. I haven't seen them since my arm broke, and it's been over a week."

Mother enters the room then, giving Father a meaningful look.

"Mulan, your mother and I have been talking, and we think it's best if you stay inside the walls for a little while."

"I'm grounded?" I ask, incredulous. Really, I'm grounded after a couple of kids beat me up. There's no way they can twist this into me picking a fight.

"No," Father states quickly. "You're not grounded, it's just safer if you stay inside for a while. It's best to not give those boys any more ideas."

"That's not fair!" I cry. "It's not my fault!"

"We're trying to keep you safe, and the only way to do that is to keep you inside the walls where we can keep an eye on you."

I get angry. "You can't just keep me locked inside the walls! I'm not four anymore!"

"That's enough!" Father shouts. "You will stay inside the walls until I say otherwise! Do I make myself clear?"

I'm still angry, but I don't have any other choice than to comply.

"Yes, sir," I state, staring at the ground so that they don't see the tears in my eyes.

-End Flashback-

I was stuck at home for another two weeks before Father finally broke down and let me out. I'm guessing he finally got tired of seeing me mope around the house and garden, rereading the same books and doing the same chores.

When I was finally released, Mushu and Melei were absolutely appalled by what the idiots had done to me. Mushu swore revenge, which was never delivered, though he did come up with some very creative ideas which were basically guaranteed to not work anyway. Melei broke down crying to which I told her that it could have been worse: they could have broken my right arm. See, realism isn't always cynical.

Now, I often think of my broken arm as the beginning of the end. It started everything. It was the crack that would widen until I finally broke. Because my arm was broken, my parents had that argument in the dining room. Because I heard the argument, I began to doubt my father's faith in me. Because I began to doubt my father's faith in me, I began to doubt myself more and more, thinking that maybe I really was defective in some way. And all of that doubt only escalated until the accident happened, when my world was finally shattered, and my self-doubt turned to self-hate. And when that finally happened, I isolated myself, and I became completely alone.