Title: When I Talk To You
Author: Lady of the Ink
Pairing: V/H
Category: Suspense/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 Fourteen
When I Needed You Most

Van turned from the window to find Hitomi sitting on the edge of the bed, a worried look on her pale face. Her green eyes, which had been so bright just moments before, now seemed dimmed by inner shadows. As he watched, her mouth drew into a tight line and her hands began twisting themselves together in her lap.

Pushing the urgent matter of the fire to the side for just a moment, he crossed to kneel so they were eye to eye. He didn't want to leave her feeling anxious about anything. But before he could begin to comfort her, her hands landed on his shoulders, her grip surprisingly tight.

"Van," she whispered urgently. "You can't go. The vision I had, the one that made me so worried; it was about this fire. The flames were too high, and the building came down right on top of you! If you go out there, Van, you'll . . . you'll die!" Her tongue tripped over the last word, showing her distress at the thought.

Van's face softened as he took in her concern for him. When he spoke, his voice was gentle. "Hitomi, I know that the vision must have been bad, but as king, I can't ignore this. It's something I have to do." She made a whimpering sound in her throat as her eyes pleaded with him. Pulling her hands from his shoulders, he held them tightly. "Think of it this way. You've seen bad things before, and, because you warned them, the people involved were okay in the end. Right?"

She nodded reluctantly, the resignation on her face telling him that she knew where he was going with this little conversation. "Okay. So now that you've warned me, I know to be extra careful. If things look the slightest bit out of hand, I'll back off. I promise you, nothing is going to keep me from coming back here as soon as this thing is taken care of."

"But Van . . ."

She was interrupted by the return of the knocking downstairs. Giving her no time to start disagreeing again, Van gave her a soft smile. "I'll be back before you know it. Just stay here where it's safe." In an action almost too quick to follow, he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the center of her forehead.

And with that, he was gone.

Hitomi remained still for a long while after Van's departure. Some part of her noted the sound of the front door slamming closed, and the pair of voices that faded as the speakers moved away. Most of her attention, however, was focused on convincing herself that Van was right.

"Everything is going to be okay. He's going to be fine. I told him what would happen, so he knows to be careful. That's all that I can do. He promised he'd be back soon. Everything will be fine. Everything has to be fine." She closed her eyes, and tried some calming breaths. In . . . and out. In . . . and out. In . . .

An angry huff broke from her throat, interrupting the rhythm of her breathing. Who did Van think he was, telling her to stay here? She had warned him about a life-threatening situation, and he did the equivalent of telling her not to worry her pretty little head about it. Not that he had said she was pretty, but the look he'd had when he said they needed to talk . . .

Pushing the warm feelings that that memory invoked aside, she latched onto her anger. She had thought that now that he gave her warnings more credibility, he would stop treating her like she was fragile. Okay, so maybe she wasn't in the best condition right now, but that didn't mean there wasn't something she could do.

Her eyes narrowed. If Mister High-and-Mighty King Van thought she was going to obey his every order, he had another thing coming. She had run away from it once, but she cared about Fanelia and its people, too. Nothing was going to keep her stuck in a room when they might need her most! Hitomi gave her head a sharp nod as she came to that decision.

Her spurt of anger was quickly replaced by reason. She'd been very ill for several months, and it had taken its toll. Even if she found her way to the scene of the fire, she would only be getting in the way. For everyone involved, it would be best for her to stay out of it. This time. But after she recovered, it would be another matter entirely. Van would have to learn that she wasn't the kind of person to sit around when people were in need, or they were going to have some problems.

She paused. She was thinking as though this return to Gaea was a permanent thing. Was her subconscious trying to tell her something? Or had she made her decision a long time ago, and just never admitted it, even to herself?

Her thoughts were interrupted by a banging noise in the hallway. Followed as it was by several more muffled thumps and some angry sounding words, she guessed it must have involved more than one person. Rising from the bed, she paused to get used to the action. It had been awhile since she'd had to support her own weight, and her legs trembled slightly with the effort.

But years of track had kept the months of immobility from causing too much damage. It wasn't long at all before she was crossing the room, her steps slow but steady. Reaching the door, she slowly pulled it open.

Corey groaned from the spot where he had landed after losing his balance. His position was far from what could be called comfortable. Both arms had been caught beneath him in a too-late attempt to break his fall. One leg was bent, the knee against the floor while his calf and foot climbed the wall. His other leg had escaped that fate by landing through the open doorway, but the luck of that was countered by the heavy weight that had come to rest on top of it.

With a bit of maneuvering, he managed to brace himself on his elbows. Twisting his head to look behind him, he saw the source of that weight slumped against the wall, a dazed expression on her face. Yukari groaned, raising a hand to her head.

"Ow," she muttered, gently probing a rising bump. Corey felt no sympathy as the beginnings of bruises made themselves known on his arms and legs. With a grunt, he tried to get to his feet. It wasn't happening. Yukari's weight was holding his one leg down, and the other was trapped in the small confines of the hall.

The injuries from the fall combined with his irritation over being detained put him in a less than tolerant mood. All he wanted was to get out of this hallway and find Merle before it was too late. He didn't know exactly what those men had planned, but he knew it couldn't be good. Every minute he was stuck here was another minute Merle was alone and scared, and maybe even hurt.

A rumble started in his throat at that thought, and he redoubled his efforts to move. This time, he twisted to the side and managed to get his leg off the wall. Another quick jerk and Yukari's rear hit the floor with a muffled thud. She groaned, giving him a glare, but he barely noticed.

"Jeez, it's not my fault you barreled out the door without paying any attention to where you were going. You don't have to get all rough," she chided him, still making no move to rise.

"Sorry," he bit out, getting to his knees. Gaining his feet, he headed towards the stairs. His foot came to rest on the top step just as a door behind him opened. Turning more on instinct than actual need to know who it was, he came face to face with his sister. The sight of her awake and aware stopped him in his tracks.

"Hitomi?" he breathed, conscious that his voice suddenly sounded very young. After so many months of seeing her pale and still in bed, it took a moment for him to get used to the change that had happened literally overnight. She looked so much more like the Hitomi he remembered, he felt tears sting behind his eyes. Blinking them back, he took a hesitant step forward.

She looked at him and a small smile curved her lips. "Hey, little brother."

Corey found himself speechless, all the things he had wanted to say to Hitomi had vanished completely from his mind. He was aware of only a single thought, running through his head in an ever-repeating loop.

'I did the right thing.'

For a moment suspended in time, he looked at her, and she looked back at him. To Corey, the world narrowed to just the two of them. Just two people acknowledging a gift given and accepted, and a fate that could not be avoided. In that moment, as he read the intent in her eyes, he admitted two things to himself.

The first was that Gaea and the people who inhabited it were vital to Hitomi's health and happiness. Whether the reverse of that was true, he didn't know. And it didn't matter. She was going to stay here, as she had always been meant to do.

The second thing he accepted was that he couldn't do the same. He saw a flash of sadness in Hitomi's eyes, almost as though she knew. Then again, he mused, she probably did. Mustering up an encouraging smile, he reassured himself, and her, that it wouldn't be forever. If there were ways to keep in contact, they would find them.

There was a scraping sound as Yukari finally got to her feet. Corey blinked as the connection that had hung between Hitomi and himself was broken. Looking at the grumbling redhead, he was reminded of their collision, and the reason for it. His earlier urgency returned with a vengeance, and he knew he had to get going. Turning back to his sister, he spoke words very similar to ones she had said to him not so long ago.

"Merle needs me." She nodded, and he knew she understood. With another quick smile tossed over his shoulder, he headed down the stairs as quickly as he could.

The dash through town was little more than a blur. All he could think of was Merle and the expression of fear on her face in his vision. The thought that someone could be hurting her at that moment made him lengthen his stride. He had never wished so feverishly that he had taken track like Hitomi.

He just couldn't be too late.

Hitomi found herself alone in the hall with her disgruntled best friend. Before she could speak, Yukari held up one hand to silence her. "Why is it that every time I think I'm all caught up with whatever's going on, something new happens that I don't understand?"

"Yukari, I know all of this must be really strange for you . . ." Hitomi began.

"Strange?" she answered in disbelief. "I think we passed strange quite awhile ago. Somewhere between the 'miraculous recovery' thing and the 'going to another planet' thing. And that's not even taking into account the whole 'So my best friend saved the world' thing that I had to learn from someone with no clue about personal space." She sighed, rubbing lightly at her forehead. "And now Corey's apparently off playing superhero and you have that woman-on-a-mission look, and I know you're about to do something I'll probably get stuck in the middle of." She flung both arms out to the side in a gesture of hopeless confusion. "I just don't want to add 'feeling left out' to the amazingly long list of things that have happened to me in the past two days."

A part of Hitomi felt sorry that Yukari was now caught up in the whole situation. She remembered how confused and unnerved she'd felt in the beginning. All she'd wanted to do was go home and forgot that any of it had ever happened. But then she had come to know the people around her, and even call them friends. Her mindset had changed from wanting to save herself from having to deal with the circumstances, to wanting to help resolve those same circumstances for the sake of everyone involved. It had taken seeing the problems from the eyes of those caught up in them to make her understand.

Taking Yukari's arm, Hitomi lead her towards the stairs. She decided that the best way to explain was to start at the beginning, but they were going to do it somewhere other than in a hallway. She had plenty of time to go into details, and she wanted to be somewhere comfortable. Then she could just wait for the other person she had to have a talk with to return.

"It all started when I saw a boy in the middle of the track that no one else could see . . ."

Merle raced through the brush as quickly as her legs could carry her. She was giving it her all, and yet she could still hear the yells and running steps of those men. A sob tore from her throat as she felt hopelessness flood through her. This far in the woods, especially at this hour of the morning, there was no one who might help her. Van and the others would probably sleep late, and it could be hours before anyone noticed her absence. Dodging around a tree, she struggled to gain just a little more distance from the men. She didn't even know what she'd done to make them so angry.

Her unease from the night before had carried over into a troubled rest. After tossing and turning, she had finally risen a bit before dawn, sure that she wouldn't be getting any more sleep. When a search of the study didn't turn up anything to occupy her attention, she had come a decision.

Gathering her cloak and a basket for the supplies, she'd left early for the market. Knowing that it would be an hour or so before the sellers set up their booths, she chose to take a meandering route to pass the time. Leaving town from the eastern end, she intended to curve around in a wide, arcing path that would allow her to reenter from the west.

At least, that had been the plan. As she made her way along the path, her mind was anywhere but on where she was going. The next thing she knew, she'd slammed into something large and hard that gave an angry yell on contact. She landed on her backside in the middle of the path, slightly dazed.

Her breath caught in her throat as she looked up to a distressing sight. Four rough looking men blocked the path, all of them staring at her. The largest of the troupe, and apparently the one she'd collided with, stood over her with a murderous look on his face. Even though it went against her nature, Merle found herself rushing to apologize. It had been an accident, but something told her this man wasn't going to let it ride at that.

For a long moment, he'd just stood there, staring at her. When her nerves had been stretched to the limit, she'd managed to mumble something about being on her way. His face had darkened and he'd grown more furious than before. Leaning down to where she was still sprawled on the trail, he'd gripped her chin with bruising force between his fingers. Fierce upward pressure had forced her to her feet, then onto her toes. All the while, the man stared at her, a livid expression on his face.

When her feet left the ground all together, she realized that if nothing stopped him, this man was going to kill her. Terror flooded through her veins as her breath was choked off. The edges of her vision began to go dark. It was pure survival instinct that had her kicking out her leg in a last ditch effort to get free.

It took a split second after he released his grip with a howl of pain for her to realize she was loose. After that, she was off like a shot into the forest. The small part of her mind that wasn't frozen with fear urged her to head for some type of cover. Now she was trapped on the wrong end of a pursuit, and she was beginning to tire. Running all out was meant for spurts, not a continuous dash. If she didn't come up with another plan, it was only a matter of time before she was caught.

A mewling cry tore from a throat already sore from rough, gasping breaths and gulping sobs. Merle could feel her muscles beginning to cramp. Her hands were stinging and bleeding from the rocky ground, and she was aware of more than one cut on her arms and legs from branches and rough bark. She couldn't keep this up for much longer and she knew it.

Just as that thought solidified in her mind, the ground disappeared from beneath her. There was a sickening feeling as her stomach lurched, then only the sensation of air passing her as she fell. She barely had time to realize what was happening before she slammed into the ground. The breath whooshed from her lungs, and for long moments, she struggled to inhale.

She never saw the blow coming.

A sharp pain exploded through the back of her head. The force of the attack sent her rolling forward. Merle knew she wouldn't be able to fight back. She was outnumbered four to one, and each of the men was twice her size. Add to that her exhausted state, and she was virtually helpless to defend herself. Curling into a tight ball, she wrapped her arms around her middle, and prayed it would be over soon.

A foot smashed with punishing force into her side, resulting in the release of her just caught breath. She couldn't even cry out, so intense was the pain. Images flashed through her mind. Van, finally happy again. Hitomi, curled by his side, a look of contentment on her sleeping face. Corey, smiling at her so kindly. Another hit came from the other side, landing on her thigh. She tensed, waiting for the next, but it never fell.

Merle would never know for sure how much time had passed. Everything was a blur in her mind, and she knew she had probably lost consciousness at some point. But the next thing she knew for sure, someone was beside her, calling her name.

At first, unable to move, she lay there, aching and terrified. A hand came to rest on her shoulder, causing her to flinch. The touch gentled, but didn't leave. The voice began speaking again.

"Merle? Merle. You have wake up now, okay? You have to tell me that you're all right. I couldn't have been too late. Please, please wake up!"

It sounded so familiar to her, that voice filled with such sorrow and uncertainty, but she couldn't place it. When her eyes fluttered open, her vision was blurry for a moment. When it cleared, she saw a boy with worried jade eyes looking back at her. There was a cut on his forehead, a smudge of dirt on his cheek, and he had a bloody lip. And his was still the most wonderful face she had ever seen.

"Corey?" she asked, hoping he was really there, sitting beside her, and not a figment of her imagination.

"Hey." He smiled, the expression on his face softening with relief. "Do you think you can get up, if I help?" When she nodded, he slipped an arm around her waist, supporting most of her weight as he helped her to her feet. She groaned once or twice, and he flinched each time. When she finally stood facing him, he looked into her eyes.

"I'm sorry." For a moment she was confused, unsure of why he was apologizing. But the expression on his face was so full of misery, she knew he thought he'd done something wrong.

"It's okay; you didn't do anything. It was the fall and those men . . ." For the first time, it occurred to Merle to look for the thugs. When she did, her jaw slackened in shock. Lying about on the ground, two of the men were obviously unconscious. The other two, including the one who had started it all, were nowhere to be seen. Turning back to Corey, she asked, "Did you . . ."

He looked a little embarrassed as color stained his cheeks. "It wasn't as big a thing as it might seem. I took karate for a bunch of years, and I don't think they've ever seen fighting like that before. Once I started taking care of those two, the others freaked out and ran. Though I really would have liked to get my hands on that one." His eyes narrowed and darkened, and she felt his hands tense where they rested on her waist. She watched as he ducked his head, not meeting her eyes. "I'm sorry I didn't get here soon enough to keep them from hurting you."

Merle heard the pain in his voice, and hurried to try and ease it. "From my point of view, your timing was just fine."

Still not looking at her, Corey shifted his position so one arm was curled around her waist. "We should be getting back. The others are probably wondering what's going on." Merle nodded, allowing him to help support her weight. As they walked slowly back towards town, they began to talk.

Hitomi was in the study, settled comfortably in one of the study's chairs. Early afternoon sunlight illuminated the cozy room, but she didn't notice. Her thoughts were on the other people in the house, and the one who had yet to return to it.

Corey had arrived back with a battered Merle, both of them looking surprisingly content for the situation they had just been through. When she would have asked questions, her little brother gave her a look that said he'd explain it all, just not then. Without a single word, the two retreated to the kitchen to care for their wounds.

Yukari had listened to her entire story, interrupting only a few times with cries of "No way!" and "That couldn't have really happened, could it?" Hitomi suppressed a smile as she remembered the stunned expression her friend had still been wearing when she left to take in all the things she'd been told.

Sighing a little, Hitomi idly twisted a strand of hair around her finger. She was glad Yukari had been brought along on this trip. It felt nice to know that someone else could understand what it was like to see this place that few others ever would. To know the wonder a world unseen, and appreciate it for its differences.

And maybe it would help her parents to understand why she was going to stay here if it could be explained to them from someone who had seen this place firsthand. It would take time, she knew, but eventually even her mother would see that leaving a place behind doesn't mean abandoning the people. After all, though her body had left Gaea, her mind, her soul, had always remained, waiting for her return.

And there were always visits, she assured herself. Though Corey would be going home with Yukari, she knew it wouldn't be forever. He had as strong a connection to this place as she had ever had, and it wouldn't be possible for him to remain gone for long. Who knew; maybe when he came home to Gaea to stay, he wouldn't be alone.

The sound of the door opening brought her thoughts to a halt and her body to its feet. She caught the scent of smoke and knew exactly who would be standing in the doorway. The lecture that had been brewing in her mind rose to her lips, and she turned to deliver it . . . Only to have it die a quick death as she saw Van.

Soot covered him from head to toe, dimming the colors of his clothing and probably hiding burns, as well. The only clear part on his face were the tracks left from smoke tears that had coursed down his cheeks. His hair was matted to his head with sweat, and she could see a tremor running through him as a sign of his weariness.

But even with all that, the moment his eyes landed on her, he smiled. Her breath caught in her chest at that smile, and tears misted her eyes. It occurred to her that she had been needlessly complicating something that was so very simple. Smiling back at him, Hitomi raced across the room and threw herself against Van's chest. He remained motionless for a surprised moment, but then his arms wrapped around her tightly.

Mindless of the grime and smell of smoke, Hitomi sighed in contentment. All that mattered was that she loved Van, and she knew that he loved her in return. After that, everything else was just details.

Final part, "About the Future", coming soon.