Well, here's chapter 4. Sorry it took so long for me to write it, but I'm lazy and beside that I was busy with translating the first two chapter of Mirri's Final Fantasy 7 - 10 yaoi crossover. (Read it, it's good. Only the translation is crappy. T_T) But even though my English isn't that good and it takes some time and some help of the dictionary I hope she lets me translate the next parts too. It's fun. ^^

Chapter IV

By Kia

*** ***

"Has anyone of you seen Cinna or Marcus around here?" Blank asked as he entered the bar, because one look around the room had told him that obviously they weren't here. They weren't here. Baku had told him to go and call them home. He'd told him they'd be at Lario's bar and they weren't. Blank felt a bit like an idiot. Why was he send here when they were elsewhere?

Lario looked at him and grinned a little.

"They left two minutes ago. Wanted to go home, I think." he told him. Blank rolled his eyes.

"Thanks." He turned to leave.

"How's Zidane?" Lario asked just as he opened the door. The redhead grimaced a little.

"Better," he said and added after a few seconds: "A little."

"Well, that's nice. Camilla will be glad to hear that."

Blank only nodded and left.

On his way back he couldn't help but curse Baku for sending him away just when they had found a doctor who was actually willing to look for Zidane. The only other doctor in Lindblum didn't want to have anything to do with Tantalus since he thought he wouldn't get paid. Blank cursed him too.

As he opened the door the thought crossed his mind that maybe Baku had send him away just because there was finally a doctor here. Even that old guy had noticed that Blank was even more worried about his friend than the others, and so he probably didn't want to have him around in case the doc told them something he wouldn't like. That thought made sense and Blank cursed him even more. He cursed a lot theses days.

Marcus was sitting in the same armchair he'd been sitting in the evening Zidane got ill and was torturing his writers block again. He looked up when the door opened and told the other boy that the doctor had just left two minutes ago. Blank grimaced once again and came to the conclusion that two wasn't his lucky number today.

"And? What did he say?" he asked as he stepped in. Marcus shrugged.

"I wasn't there," he explained. "Ask Baku."

"What hid he say." Blank asked again and looked at Baku who right then happened to come in. There was a hint of anger in his voice and the older man looked at him sceptically.

"He said it's nothing stupid kinds like you'd have to worry about." he stated. "He'd seen it before and even though it's quite serious four people out of five use to survive it."

If his words were meant to reassure him it didn't work. Four out of five! That meant one had do die of it, didn't it?

He didn't know what to say to that so he only frowned at Baku and left the room.

***

Zidane was still sleeping when Blank entered the room and sat down on the chair beside his bed again. He took his lifeless hand into his own, larger one and his skin felt so cold, scaring him for a second. Only the faint rise and fall of his chest showed that he was still alive.

The younger boy looked like he was just sleeping peacefully. Blank wondered if he was dreaming of Kuja again and his heart twisted painfully at the thought. The redhead suddenly realised that he made Kuja responsible for all of this. If whatever had happened to him wouldn't make Zidane so unhappy, he wouldn't be in such a bad shape now, would he? Four out of five. Those words just wouldn't leave his head.

But Zidane was always on the lucky side, wasn't he. He was strong, he wouldn't be killed by something like that. But still, hadn't he been worried about him jumping off a ship just two day's ago? What if Zidane didn't want to survive it?

Blank pushed that thought out of his mind – or at least he tried to. It disappeared into some hidden corner of his mind but stayed there to come out again at any given time.

Blank ignored it for the moment. He placed his hand on his friends forehead, then softly passed his finger down his cheek. His skin was soft, though cold, but he knew that the fever would come back in no time.

His lips were slightly parted and Blank wondered how it would feel like to kiss them. He knew he would probably never do it. Though he wanted to for a long time already.

He wondered it Kuja had ever done it.

"Please wake up," he whispered, a slightly sad look on his face. Four out of five. What if he'd just die without ever waking up again? He was probably worrying too much, he knew it but he was helpless against it.

He'd wanted to stay awake in case Zidane'd wake up again or something but after a while fatigue took over him and he slept in, those four words still ringing through his head.

***

He woke up to something moving beside him and found it to be Zidane, not awake as hoped in the first second but tossing around in his sleep, very obviously having a nightmare. His cheeks were wet with tears and he was softly whimpering as if in pain. Blank was very awake suddenly. He placed his hands onto Zidane's shaking shoulders, carefully holding him down so he wouldn't hurt himself. Even through the fabric of his clothes he could feel that the fever was back again.

"Hey!" he said softly. "Hey, Zid, wake up, okay?"

He hadn't really thought that the boy would actually do so but after a second or two he opened his eyes a bit and looked at Blank through his tears.

"Kuja…." he whispered. Blank swallowed.

"No… it's me, Blank, you know? Zidane?"

Zidane's eyes became a bit clearer.

"Blank?"

"Yes, how…" He never got to finish question for in this moment Zidane's body suddenly came up and he fell forward into Blanks arms. The red harried boy was more than surprised when he felt him cry openly into his chest.

"I'm sorry!" the blond sobbed. "I didn't mean to…"

Blank knew he was talking about his brother but that very much was it. He also knew that this was probably his only chance to ever find out what actually had happened in those few weeks the two of them were gone to wherever they might have been.

"Hey, Zid, 's okay!" he said softly, gently stroking his long blond hair and pulling him even closer with the other hand. "Just what happened? Tell me."

"I can't…" came the choked reply after a few seconds.

"You can! Please! I want to help you!" Blank knew that it was only because of Zidane's weak state that the boy finally lost the last bit of control over himself, but after a minute of silence he took a deep breath and told, between sobs and with long pauses the story of his short time with his brother and the reason why, in the end, he died.

-tbc-

06,09,2002

He he, sorry. I had planned to kill poor Kuja in this chapter but now he has to wait until the next one.

Arg, this story is really hard to write for me. When I decided to continue it I already knew how it was going to end, but I still don't know how exactly to get there. T_T