A/N: I was listening to my Winamp playlist and realized that there is a song for Quatre and Jess. What a weirdo I am....anyways, if you even bother, it's Be With You by GLAY, a really beautiful song. The lyrics are so moving and describe Quatre and Jess' relationship past, the phase it is going through and future *koff* foreshadowing people, foreshadowing! *koff*. English translation is at the end of the chapter. ^^ Next chapter is Quatre...sorry 'bout breaking the chain there. ^^'

When All Is Lost...

Chapter Seven

Jess stared up at the ceiling with a somewhat bored expression. Being bedridden for the past few days was not her idea of a good time, especially when all she could do was read and write. Restlessly, she rubbed her hands, attempting to alleviate the itch she felt; how good it would feel to have the smooth keys of a piano beneath her fingertips, the notes filling the air instead of the wretched silence.

"Come on now, you know they're doing a lot simply being here with you." she said aloud as she looked over at the bedside table. "But I cannot read one more chapter of that book...I'll go nuts...I should have asked for more."

She eyed the wall filled with books; it was only a few feet away. Surely it wouldn't be too much to move herself a bit and select a new one. But Quatre had admonished her from moving beyond necessary. She could have called him to get her a new one, but she knew he was busy making dinner. Chewing on her lip, she dismissed the idea of asking Wufei; that would simply spark another debate between them and she found those exhausting lately - more than usual actually.

She shrugged and looked around for something to propel herself over to the bookcase. Come to think of it...she had never bothered to see what the floor was. It took her a few minutes, but she was soon leaning over the side of the bed, smiling as the polished hardwood strips greeted her sight. 'Bingo.' Another cursory inspection proved that there was not a single easily moveable chair that she could use, not even at the desk beside the window.

"Damnit," she muttered as she started to throw blankets on the floor. "You think he would have a chair on rollers with a floor like this."

She slipped down off the edge of the bed, taking the blankets with her; she didn't want to have to fight her way back if she got cold. She bit down on her lip hard when her shin banged against the edge of the bed before thudding down on the floor. She looked up as she fought the urge to curse.

"Are you all right Jess?" Quatre's voice was coming down the hallway.

"I'm fine! Thank you!" she called back quickly. "Just make sure dinner doesn't burn!"

Nothing came for a few minutes before the sounds of his footsteps retreating came. She sighed and started to slide herself over with her good arm, sweat beading on her brow. When she finally made it over to the bookcase, she was panting, leaning against the wall heavily.

"OK...you've had better ideas." she gasped. "But you are within reach of books."

She pulled one down from the shelf and started to read, pillowing her back with the thicker blankets - that part of her seemed to be a bit sorer as well. She hoped that doctor came within the next two weeks. She felt her eyelids grow heavy but she fought it forcing them open as soon as she realized they were closed. Dragging herself across the floor was more work than she had thought.

When she opened them again, she saw an unfamiliar face in the doorway, the blue eyes framed by honey coloured hair. She started, body tensing up when she felt a hand take hers.

"It's all right Jess. This is Dr. Po. She finally came to look at you." Quatre said, stilling her trembling.

"I came as soon as I could." the woman said softly.

"Pardon?" she looked confused as she looked at him and then warily at the woman in the door.

"Yes. Quatre told me about your symptoms over the phone so I took so leave time to come and see for myself. I assumed you still want this under secrecy."

"Yes, thank you Sally." Quatre said.

Jess didn't reply, looking at her stonily. She didn't care if this was the same doctor who looked at her before. Who knew how that sick bastard operated - she thought he had died before and somehow he came back from space to plague her once more.

"I'll set up Quatre. You get her on the bed." Sally said as she set her bag down and started through it.

Jess looked at Quatre who had a pleading expression in his eyes. She nodded before she wrapped the blanket tightly around her; she still didn't like excessive contact of skin.

"Perhaps it's just me, or do all you Maxwells not listen when something is said for your benefit?" Quatre had a somewhat amused tone of disapproval in his voice. "We wanted you to stay in bed so you could heal properly."

"I wanted to read another book." she said simply with a slight shrug.

"Why didn't you ask me to get it for you?" he laid her down gently on the bed's soft surface. "You know I would have."

"I know. I didn't want to disturb you though." she shrugged. "I got it."

"You were dozing off when we came in." Quatre's eyes were extremely concerned. "You've been very tired lately."

"So, I've slept for the past few days." she shrugged. "A bit of sleep never hurt anyone."

He shook his head. "You've been sleeping for four days straight at a time and staying awake for one."

"What? So you mean two weeks hasn't passed?" she looked surprised.

"No. It's been eight. Every time one of us comes in to see how you're doing, you were out like a light." he sat beside her. "But on the bright side, your appetite has come back."

"Uh huh." she couldn't help but smile. "What were you whipping up for dinner? Stew?" she looked hopeful.

"Tuna casserole."

"Oh...tuna..." she managed to keep the smile on her face.

"That was all that was left. Wufei went to get food when I started dinner. It's not that bad. I make good casseroles." a small smile darted across his face.

"Of course you do. I just hate casseroles. Tuna I can tolerate."

"All right then," Sally came over, shooing Quatre out of his spot and flicking on a penlight. "How have you been feeling lately?"

She looked over at him before answering. "Really tired...and I'm hungry. My back kinda hurts and I am sick and tired of staying in bed."

"Well that might be expected at this two month mark. You're body is heading into the final stages of healing. You'll be out of bed soon enough. Have you experienced any soreness anywhere?"

"My back." she said, forcing herself to keep her eyes open as the light was flashed in.

"Your back?" Sally turned off the light and put the stethoscope on her ears. "In what manner; general soreness or full back pain? Breathe in please."

Jess flinched as the cold metal was pressed to her chest with just enough force but she breathed and managed to keep herself calm. "Soreness; it kills to move it some days, other days, it's OK."

"All right," Sally whisked away the cold metal and took out a tongue depressor. "I hear you were throwing up for awhile."

"I was. I can eat now." she said before allowing the wood to press her tongue down.

"For how long could you not eat?"

"A week or two...three tops." Quatre interjected. "Then she was hungry all the time."

"Hm. I'm going to have to look at your legs. Could you move the blanket, please?"

She swallowed as Sally walked away to get something as she reluctantly peeled away the protective layers of cloth. The ugly jagged scar lines ran down her thigh to her knee, halting there before it continued on down her calf. The worst was the large fist sized blemishes that lay smack dab in the middle of her shins, her right one twisting out slightly in a repulsive testament to what the sledgehammer had... She choked back a sob as Sally went to work quickly, feeling the skin and inspecting the scar lines; it hurt slightly, nothing she couldn't tolerate. As soon as she finished, she whipped the blankets back over her legs, not saying a word.

"Well, the good news is that your legs should be fine by the end of three months. From then on, you'll have to get yourself walking again. I have some crutches out in my car that I'll leave with you." Sally said as she put away her small hammer. "Your reflexes are a lot slower in your right leg as opposed to your right one, but you are lucky to even have that left leg; that one will make things harder for you."

Jess nodded her head silently. "So I'll be fine soon?"

"At this stage, I can say yes. A final prognosis, I can't tell yet. Could I take a blood sample to analyze?" Sally asked rummaging around in her bag once more. "I could do a quick field analysis of it and isolate the problem."

With a swallow, Jess nodded and offered her arm slowly. She wasn't expecting this to come up. She fell back into her stony faced silence as Sally took the syringe and drew a small quantity of blood. She rubbed gingerly at the spot that had been pricked once Sally left the room.

"Are you all right?" Quatre took his seat beside her once more.

"I feel like I want to take a nap again." she gave a shaky smile. "Was it really eight weeks?"

Quatre nodded. "It was."

"Did Duo come back yet? He said he would be gone for two weeks."

"No," Quatre said after a few minutes. "Duo hasn't come back yet."

"He-He hasn't?" she looked shocked. "But...Duo...said..."

"I know he said two weeks. Maybe he got held up somewhere." Quatre gazed at the lamp for a minute. "Maybe it's taking him longer to do whatever it was he's doing."

"I hope that's it...if I lost my brother..." she whispered, grasping his hand tightly.

"He'll come back. According to him, it's almost impossible to kill a Maxwell." Quatre said in a light voice.

Jess felt a shiver of terror run through her at his words. She knew he didn't mean them in a bad way, but she remember the knife and how willing she had become to use it on herself. She blinked before she hugged him suddenly, ignoring the twinge from her left wrist.

"Jess?" Quatre asked, his hands hovering around her unsure.

"Never let me go." she whispered. "I don't want you to."

They didn't say anything more as they held each other, content to have their moment. When Sally knocked before coming back in the room, they drew apart, but still holding hands. She smiled, seeing their interlaced fingers; that much prolonged contact didn't bother her as much now. That hug had crept under her skin though. She would have to work on that on next.

"Jessica...how old are you?"

"Seventeen...I'll be eighteen soon enough; why?"

Sally looked back down at the paper in her hands. "And when was your last menstruation?"

"Erm..." her face flared a violent red as she struggled to recall; it was a lot trying to simply recall descending through the atmosphere during the battle. "I can't remember."

"According to this, it was almost three months ago." Sally said. "Do you realize what that means?"

Jess' brow furrowed as she thought. "I lucked out in some regard?" "

No." Quatre said slowly, shaking his head his eyes troubled. "Something else."

Jess looked at him as he said the last words so slowly. What could have made him say it like that? It was three months ago, and she was fine now, so the only reason why it wouldn't come was if she was -

"Oh God, no!" she gasped, looking back at Sally horrified. It was all terribly clear now. "Please tell me that it's not..." her voice was a bare and rather stark whisper.

"I'm sorry, but it's true. The symptoms only verified my results." Sally looked saddened. "You're pregnant."

~*~

"Jess, you have to eat something." the sound of a spoon being stirred in a bowl echoed out dully through the room.

She looked up at Quatre before she looked away, closing her eyes. "I'm not hungry."

Sally had left soon after her diagnosis was well as advising her to get plenty of rest and not overexert herself. 'Not a lot of caffeine, sit in back support chairs, make sure you exercise carefully, no hunching...more bloody rules...more bloody headaches...' She clutched the pillow closer, feeling misery well up inside as she lay half curled up on the bed. Duo was gone for almost three months and now she had this to deal with...this wasn't supposed to happen to her; she was the good guy here, the one who should have ended up happy in the end.

"Jess, please eat something." Quatre's voice was soft and insistent as he stroked her hand.

"No." she repeated again sullenly.

"At least think of the baby."

She froze at his words before she spat out her response. "Think of the baby? Think of the baby?! That's all I've been thinking about since I heard the wretched news!" she snarled at him. "How do you think I feel? That sick bastard knocked me up in the worst way possible, and now I have something from him growing inside me like some...like some pestilence!" she glared at him. "This child is the last thing I want to think about!"

"Either way you look at it Jess, the child is growing inside of you. And you can't abort, not in your current state." he paused. "That would be too taxing."

"Fuck my state!" she yelled, snatching her hand away. "I never wanted this child, I never asked for it! Why the hell should I keep it?" she closed her eyes, feeling her temples throb. "What good will come of it?!"

"Jess, I didn't mean it in tha-"

"Of course you didn't; you just want me to do what's right. Always the right thing!" she looked away. "I am fucking sick and tired of doing the right thing. Look at what the right thing did to me! Look at me!! I'll be partially crippled for the rest of my life and have the stigma of teen pregnancy over my head. Pregnant at seventeen, Quatre, seventeen fucking years old!" she rolled over onto her other side, facing away from him.

"It's not the end of the world." he sounded saddened and somewhat lost. "There are things you could do."

"Like what? Becoming a statistic?" she said, tears coming to her eyes; she was crying a lot more easily now. "Another single teen mom doomed to live on welfare?"

"No, it doesn't have to be that way. I-"

"You don't know the first thing about what I am going through!" she screamed at him suddenly. "Get out! Get out, get out, get out!!"

She broke into full sobs as she buried her face in the pillow, unwilling to look at him. When she heard the door close softly, she sobbed harder, tears washing the cloth. This was the worst thing that he had ever done to her, and now she felt like she just wanted that dagger buried in her heart now.

~*~



Here's those lyrics I promised. And in English too...I don't think romanji would have been a good idea. ^^' Recalling Torment of Paradise would be helpful as well. ^__^

GLAY - Be With You

That I could meet you...
And mixed-up happiness
Before my eyes is the bound line
The future seems to be near but an endlessly far
Happiness is, perhaps, unintentional
Satisfied, time hides its face
Neither being able to afford to look back
Nor turning to peace of mind
Longing for the strength to live out
Let me stay here a little more

When I was nearly buried in the throng
'Cause some dreams got blurred
And I could not convey my timid heart-pounding
That I could meet you...
Things we can believe
Touched by each of them
On the unobstructed way leading to you
Now I hope to send you my love in bundles

When I feel the joy of loving you
And the sparkle of life, like wrapping the pain
Thinking tenderly of the frailty
That nobody can live out his life all by himself
Lovingly, I held that hand

On the days when things don't go as I hope
I find myself losing a tender heart
Yes, it's still on the half way of my dream
Saying to myself so, I got to sleep

If we begin to doubt
There'll be no bounds
So from sometime hard to speak our minds
We came to keep silent

How far should we go?
Just in the forest of illusion...
Just keep runnning there
Still I have things that I can't budge
On those who hate the never-healed times
Without saying a word, ah....
Beyond the sinking sun
I wanna guard you forever
'Cause the blue of memories
I can't hold back my tears

That I could meet you...
The mixed-up happiness
From now on, only you and me
With heart to heart each other
On the unobstructed way leading to you
Bundling the loves now...
And I wanna be your love