Title: When I Talk To You
Author: Lady of the Ink
Pairing: V/H
Category: Action/Adventure/Romance, with some good angst thrown in for flavor :)
Disclaimer: I don't own Escaflowne, but you knew that. I hope. But I do own this story and all the plot twists it contains.

Chapter Two
Feels Like Forever

Merle switched the basket she carried from one arm to the other as she neared her destination. The group of workers were gathered around the well, taking turns getting drinks of the cool water. Sweat glistened on their faces and arms, testimony to the morning of hard work they'd already put in at this early hour. Lord Van was slightly apart from the others, but whether it was by his choice or theirs, she couldn't guess.

Lord Van had changed. It had happened so subtlety that even she, his closest friend, hadn't noticed. He became quieter, spending more and more time alone. And although there was nothing new about that, his attitude while around people was. His temper grew shorter and he began to snap at everyone around him. Even though he still attending to all matters of the country, it just wasn't with the same feeling as before.

It felt like some part of him had gone missing, and when Merle caught him sitting by himself in a certain glade, staring at the night sky, she figured she had a pretty good idea of what part that was. While she had resented Hitomi intensely upon her arrival, Merle had come to see that the other girl was really a good person. She cared about the people she met even when they were less than civil to her in return.

And though she would never admit it, Merle had come to feel an affinity to Hitomi. She, herself, knew all too well what it felt like to be judged on just one part of who you were. The way she was treated because of being a cat girl wasn't that different from the way Hitomi was treated for being from the Mystic Moon and knowing the future.

More than any other person in her life, Merle cared about Lord Van. He had always been there, first as friend, then as her first crush, now like a brother. To see him in pain caused her pain, and they were both hurting now. There was no worse feeling than being helpless to help.

Her foot caught on a rock in the path, bringing her out of her inner thoughts quickly. She had reached the men, who watched her without saying anything. Lord Van didn't even seem to notice her presence as he stared broodingly towards the trees. Setting down the basket containing thick sandwiches and assorted sides, Merle moved to her oldest and dearest friend. Without giving him time to react, she gripped his arm and pulled him even farther off the track.

Ignoring his protests, she pushed him onto one of the few remaining stumps in a newly cleared field. Turning to glare at him, she placed one fist on either hip, her legs spread in a fighter's stance.

"Something is wrong, and I want to know what it is. You have been in the most awful mood for weeks, snapping at everyone who gets within three feet of you. Everyday, you come out here, working hard enough for five men. If I didn't know better, I'd swear you're trying to kill yourself with this pace. You are going to sit in that spot until you tell me what's the matter. I mean it," she added, pushing him down when he would have gotten up. "Not one muscle twitch until you tell me everything."

For a long moment, he didn't move, a mulish expression on his face. Merle had seen it before; she wasn't impressed. She just gave him her own version of that look back. When she knew that he was finally paying attention to her, she crossed her eyes, sticking her tongue out as far as it would go. A snort of laughter escaped Van before he could stop it, helping to break the tension that had developed after Merle's decree.

"It's something to do with Hitomi, isn't it?"

One hand drifted to the chain barely visible around his neck before he answered. "Something's wrong, Merle. For awhile, I could picture her in my mind, just like she taught me, and I could see her. There, on the Mystic Moon. Sometimes she would be at school, or running, or at home. I could talk to her, like she was sitting next to me. But then it stopped."

"Stopped?" Merle prodded, when it seemed like he wouldn't go on.

"I couldn't see her anymore. No matter how hard I tried, it was like hitting a wall. At first I thought maybe she was blocking me out. That she didn't want to talk, or was too busy." A look of sadness crossed his face at this sentence, and Merle laid a hand on his shoulder. "But I don't think she would do that, not so suddenly. She would have told me to back off. Right?"

This was a delicate situation, so Merle took a moment to map out her words. If she told him Hitomi was probably just too busy for him, it would be a major blow to someone who was already down. Besides that, she didn't think Hitomi would do something like that. The other girl had seemed to care as much for Van as he did for her. Even if she did want a break, she would be honest and tell him so.

But the only option that that left was that something was wrong. Hitomi wasn't answering because she couldn't answer. Maybe the link had just been broken because of time, or maybe it was something more ominous. The world Hitomi had spoken of had sounded far from being the safest place to live. Anything could have occurred, and they would never know for sure.

Sighing under her breath, Merle spoke carefully. "I'm sure that she's okay. Maybe she's trying just as hard to reach you, and you're missing each other. It could just be that you need to take a break, or something. A few weeks off, and it'll go back to the way it was."

The look on Van's face said he wasn't encouraged. Truth be told, neither was Merle. Now that she knew the situation, something was telling her that the worst was truly yet to come.

Rebuilding an entire country was not an easy feat. Doing that with half the people unsure of your abilities as ruler was almost impossible. Putting a plan into action, Van had organized several crews of workers and given every type of building an urgency rating. Storehouses and defensive walls were first, homes for the people second. Businesses were third, along with schools and public temples. In an act that had swayed more than one mind over to his side, Van had declared that the castle was to be one of the last things to be rebuilt. Even so, he needed a place to live.

A modest two story townhouse seemed to be the perfect solution. It was small enough to be completed quickly, but large enough to meet all the requirements for governing. Three bedrooms, a kitchen, a small parlor, study, and a conference room made up the building, and it had become rather cozy.

Merle was in the study now, watching as Van stared out the window, idly swinging the pendant in slow loops. It was the same thing he had been doing since she dragged him away from working this morning, and she was beginning to be more worried than before. She'd been thinking and thinking, but there was only one thing she could come up with that would solve all their problems.

Hitomi had to come back to Gaea.

Next Chapter: Since the Days