A/N: Wow. . .I was expecting no reviews for this!! I was purely writing this because I wanted to get deeper into Quatre and Jess' relationship and see if I can finally get on with the third part to their story. So, this is the part where I respond to reviews. I mean, you took the time to actually click on the button and say something! The least I can do is reply. ^^

somebody - I'm a going!! This chapter isn't their finest hour. . .or it might be. . .I'll leave that to you to decide. ^_~ But I have to ask. . .what was up with this: x 123094850438 ~ o.0 ~ I can be incredibly slow sometimes; so if you are in disbelief of exasperated, I'm honestly not surprised.
TuttiFruttiJudi - I'm glad you like this pairing. I got so sick of seeing Mary-Sues -always perfect and. . . .gah. . .I find it hard to even say! - and, as such, that I wanted to make a different sort of character. Did I succeed? Personally, Jess has taken on a life of her own in my eyes...damn stubborn girl...

When All Is Lost…

Chapter Eight

Quatre looked at the door before he walked out to the living room and sat down in the seat heavily before hanging his head down in his hands. "This has gone from bad to worse."

What on Earth could he do to try and solve this problem? Jess obviously didn't want to be around anyone. If she wasn't sleeping, she was reading and almost non-responsive. She was slowly retreating into herself despite putting on a good face for the few times when she interacted with someone. 'Jess, you constantly do this…why can't you just stop?' He rose smelling a slight burning from the kitchen. He took out the casserole and placed it on the stove, staring at it.

Maybe he wasn't dealing with this too well either. All he was saying was "You'll get better, don't worry." and "You should do what's best." and similar things. How did he honestly feel about this? It was sickening that-

"Allah!" he jumped feeling a hand settle on his shoulder. 'Wufei, you shouldn't sneak up on a person like that."

"Sneak up?" Wufei arched an eyebrow. "I made the world's biggest racket coming back in." he gestured to the plastic bags at his feet. "You were simply lost in thought."

Quatre nodded absentmindedly as he picked up some bags and started to put the items away. Crackers in the pantry, bread in the box on the counter…how could he reached Jess again? The last thing he wanted was for her to drift away and he could never reach her, get through to her, ever again. But the more he thought about it, the more he found himself-

"Quatre!"

"What?!" he yelled in an irritated voice as he whirled around to face Wufei. "I'm sorry." he stammered out quickly, surprised at himself. "I-I didn't mean to. I'm just tired…stressed maybe." he rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"I think you did." Wufei stated quietly as he closed the fridge door.

"No, no. I didn't mean to yell at you at all." he balled up the plastic bags and shoved them in their drawer.

"I think you haven't been dealing with this at all. Have you, Quatre?"

Quatre paused as he closed the drawer. "She needs me now, Wufei. She's my main concern."

"How can you help her if you're like this?" Wufei walked up to him rested the last bag on the counter. "How does it make you feel?"

"How am I supposed to feel?" he said in a weary sort of voice. "You saw what condition she was like when she first arrived here." Quatre swallowed as he remembered carrying her into the house, the blanket soaked in blood; her blood. It made him feel sick with anger, even now.

"I saw," Wufei fell silent for a moment. "And I was appalled. No woman should go through that. No one should go through that. I almost joined Maxwell."

"Why didn't you?"

"There were more urgent things here." Wufei simply said as he started to put away the items. "Why do you deny it?"

"Deny what?" Quatre said, gripping the counter hard, his knuckles turning white. "That he almost killed her? That her raped her? Repeatedly? That he made her. . ." he trailed off, head bent.

"Quatre?" Wufei placed the jar in his hand down and looked at his friend.

"That I wasn't there like I said I would be." he said softly. "I wasn't there, Wufei."

"You couldn't help that."

Quatre didn't say anything before moving suddenly, hurling the jar against the wall. He leaned against the counter heavily as he stared at the liquid running down the wall, the pickles lying in a puddle of brine and glass.

"I hate him for what he did to her. I hate him for what he did to us. I hate him for what he did to me. I hate every single miserable skewed bone in his body. I hate him like I have never hated anything in my life. I hate him." he said in a tight voice.

"Nice to see you join the rest of us." Wufei held up a hand as Quatre looked at him and opened his mouth. "I've noticed something about you. You never talk about the truly horrible. You keep it inside and don't wish to acknowledge it. You must accept it in order to better understand yourself and why you have been feeling this way."

"This is what I didn't want to have happen." he gestured to the mess slowly before he let his hand drop. "I know you guys see me as the one who always has a calm head, as the one who. . .does. . ."

"The right thing?" Wufei finished for him. "Yes, we do see you as that." he started as Quatre nodded his head. "But we also see you as one who bleeds for others and not himself so much; very odd."

"I don't know what I am supposed to do now." he whispered looking at the puddle once more, as if it had the answer. "I don't know."

"No one ever knows." Wufei added before he headed out of the kitchen.

"Wufei?" Quatre called after him suddenly as he looked up.

"Yes?"

"Treize. . .do you. . .know?" he asked softly; Treize had been one of the few MIA.

"I don't know where he is." Wufei said quietly. "But I know he's out there."

"How do you deal with it?"

Wufei remained silent for a few minutes before he looked at him. "As best you can."

Quatre remained there as Wufei walked away before he leaned off the counter and walked down the hallway. Opening the door to Jess' room, he peered in. She was fast asleep, her face tear streaked, her eyes red and swollen. He pulled up the chair and sat there for a few minutes and watched her face.

He reached out hesitantly, half expecting her to draw away from him. He fingered a lock of her hair gently before he let it fall back against her cheek. He let his finger gently trace out the pathway of a tear, all the way down to her chin. His finger rested there for a moment before he blinked suddenly. When he finally leaned back in the seat and rubbed his face, he found that his hands came back wet. He touched his face gently to find fresh tears spilling down his cheeks.

Letting his hands fall back, he simply remained in the seat, and watching Jess breathe; she looked so fragile lying there asleep, the bandages only accenting that fact. He made himself more a bit more comfortable, watching her, tears streaking his face. His heart felt so tender; it scared him sometimes how much he loved her and what he would do for her.

~*~

Quatre sighed as he turned the page in the book. The past three weeks had been far from easy. He had to practically force Jess to eat something, for her sake and the child's. Add that in with her constant state of depression and rather violent moods, he was truly starting to wonder. He stared at the page before him with an absent expression his mind going blank for a bit. There was a slight thumping noise that made him look up startled. He placed the book down, walking down the hallway slowly. 'Odd. . .Jess is taking a bath. What could have made that noise?' He paused by her bedroom door, opening it to peer in. The room was silent, the bedcovers turned back and rumpled, the crutches gone from their customary place beside the bed.

Frowning, he closed the door and looked over the other rooms; there was absolutely nothing wrong with them. When he finally came to the bathroom door, he knocked gently, not wanting to disturb her. After a few minutes, he didn't even receive a testy reply to leave her alone.

"Jess?" he called out quietly. "Are you still in there? Are you all right?" his brow furrowed when he received a somewhat slurred and faint response. "I'm coming in."

He opened the door and walked in, half staring at the floor. It looked as if something had been spilled there, something barely pinkish. Puzzled, he looked up at the bathtub ledge to see a razor sitting on the edge, the keen edge lined with bright red blood. His heart suddenly found itself in his throat as he looked at the water. It had a slightly darker pink tone, rivulets of crimson curling their way lethargically through the water from her wrists that were just beneath the surface. And lying there listlessly was Jess, her eyes closed, her chest barely moving.

Quatre didn't think he could ever move so fast. Before he knew it, he had her out of the water and back in her room in a bathrobe, the first aid kit by his side somehow as he rummaged around quickly for the gauze. He glanced over every few seconds to see the blood running freely from her slashed wrists, and his throat went dry. When he found the gauze, he pressed it against the wounds before he took out the tape and bound it securely.

"Allah..." he breathed as he sank against the headboard. "Jessica..." he sighed in a weary voice.

"Why didn't you?" she breathed as she stared off blankly.

"Why didn't I what?" he asked, looking over at her as he rubbed his eyes.

"Let me die." she finished as she started to tug at the tape. "It's better than having to live with this on my head." she started tugging at the tape more frantically. "I just want it all to be over with for good."

Quatre looked at her before he bent his head. "I can't take much more of this Jess. I am human too you know. This did affect me as well too." he watched as she struggled with the tape. "I don't think I can do any more. I could stop you from taking that tape off. But you'll probably just try again when I'm asleep."

She didn't reply as she continued to work on the tape.

"Do you want me to leave Jessica? I'm not trying to pull a guilt trip here, but if you would feel more comfortable with me gone, I'll leave."

"Leave? Why?" her soft tremulous query was interspersed by the sound of the tape tearing in small parts.

"This. I can't stand to see you going through this anymore. It's killing me. It's as bad as not knowing if you were alive or dead." Quatre paused. "Jessica, why are you doing this?"

"You don't know." she said in a somewhat broken voice as her fingers slowed down. "You don't know..."

"I know I don't. But I know that I stayed up for almost a week straight with little sleep just to make sure you would live. I know I was the one that helped Sally fix your broken bones. I wept when I saw your legs and wished for once in my life that something bad would happen to someone else."

Jess stopped as she looked at him, her fingers trailing off of the sticky tape.

"I would do anything for you Jess. But I can't take much more of this. I can only have the door slammed in my face so many times before I give up. I can't reach you anymore. I know you're hurting. I know you didn't want this child, for any of this to happen. But shutting me out won't help. I'm hurting too."

"How?" her voice sounded anguished. "It's not the same. It's not on the same level."

"I know it's not. But I know what he can do. He's the one who did this to my face." his fingers trailed across his scars gently. "I would have taken more if it meant you didn't have to go through this."

"You didn't deserve that all." she whispered. "Perhaps..." she shook her head quickly as she turned away from him.

"Jessica, please," Quatre moved a bit closer to her. "Don't slam the door again. I don't think I can take it. I just want to be here with you. I know you don't want to be alone now. I don't want to either."

"You can spend time with Wufei." she said as she remained still.

"That's Wufei, not you." he said, holding back the sudden chuckle.

She didn't respond for a few minutes. "Maybe this is fate telling me I'm not gonna have a great life." her shoulders hunched forward. "That maybe I should just save myself the trouble and end it now."

"Don't." he crawled across the bed and sat beside her. "There's something out there for you. I know it."

"Becoming a statistic?" she asked in a somewhat bitter voice.

"That again?" he shook his head. "I was thinking historian. Or something with computers, you're always messing around with some. You could build one from scratch now."

Quatre watched as Jess didn't say anything, her eyes glinting with violet-indigo in the sunlight from the window as they gazed at him intently. They flashed with so many things, and so rapidly, that he wasn't able to get a clear impression on any of them. After what seemed like forever, she took his hand and gave it a squeeze. "Ai shiteru Q-kun."

"Hrm?" he looked at her. "That one, I don't know."

She gave a faint smile, faint but genuine. "I love you Quatre."

"I love you too." he said clasping her hand in his. "Takes you awhile to snap out of things, huh?" he gave her a grin.

"I tend to wallow. Have you noticed that?" she looked down at her hand and the tape. "I missed this. I missed us."

"So did I. Want me to fix that?"

"Uh...it should hold." she said with a shrug. "Quatre...I'm scared for this baby."

"Why?" he looked at her. "You should be fine."

"I can't raise this child. I'm not ready to be a parent." she looked at her stomach. "I can't love it properly. Not after..."

He nodded. "So, you're going to give it up for adoption?"

Jess nodded. "Someone should be able to give the child a good home. Give it the things that I can't."

"You're still in the first trimester. Are you sure about this?"

"Yes." she said as she nodded her head. "I only hope that it's not like him in any way."

"It'll be fine." he said kissing her hand lightly; the slight imperceptible stiffening wasn't lost on him. "Here, I'll retape it. You did a good job of picking at it."

"Fine, if you insist." she said, letting him take her hand.

Quatre fell silent as he took out the tape again and rebound the gauze. "Jess?"

"Yes?"

"Are you going back home afterwards? What are you going to tell your parents?"

"I don't think that I can honestly live in a house and follow someone else rules. I'll probably move out and find a place of my own. I made enough investments during the war to live comfortably for the rest of my life."

"Investments?"

"You'd be surprised how a couple hundred spread out can grow exponentially on a couple of good GICs and stocks." she said. "I know it's basically profit from war, but I needed something to fall back on so I could be totally independent. At least I won't have to worry about post-secondary tuition. Why do you ask?"

Quatre didn't say anything for a few seconds, making sure the tape was tight. "Remember a while ago? When you were with him? Before you were taken to Treize?" he took a breath as she nodded her head. "My father told me something."

"What happened to your father? I meant to ask, but then you know...Oz...White Fang...and the damn craziness."

"He lived."

"What did he tell you Quatre?"

"If I walked out the door, I shouldn't think of coming back." Quatre looked up as Jess who had a rather shocked expression. "Jess?"

"He disinherited you because you came after me?"

"That's it." Quatre said as he packed the tape away once more.

"How could he do that to you?" Jess looked appalled. "You're his son!"

"Either way, I was bound to cross him sometime." Quatre said. "I never did what he wanted and that caused a lot of friction between us."

"Do you need a place to stay?" Jess asked. "You could stay with me if you want."

Quatre shook his head before he smiled again. "You weren't the only person with a backup plan, you know."