Reality was becoming heavier and heavier, though thankfully less blurry. Quatre adjusted his new wire rim glasses, trying to get used to the feeling of having something resting on his nose. The spectacles were quite large, encompassing Quatre's blue eyes entirely in the lenses, and they had a habit of sliding down his nose every five seconds.

"At least you can see now," Wufei commented, trying to paint a sunny picture.

"I suppose, though, some colors seemed to be a bit washed out, and some distant objects are still blurry, but Sally said my vision would probably never be the same."

"So, what's wrong? Is he still not talking" Duo asked in a quiet sort of voice. In all honesty none of the boys wanted to hear what Sally had to say about the situation, the less they had to think about it the better.

"No, no he's still not talking. Sally said that he might be in shock, that what happened to him was very traumatic and that he may have some problems, you know, coping with it all." The boys all nodded, acknowledging that they understood.

"Anything we can do to help?" Wufei asked anxiously.

"No, I want to take care of this, now that I have my vision back. It won't be hard, I just have to keep him happy and comfortable and try not to upset him till he comes out of it."

"We can pitch in you know," Wufei said quietly, putting his hand on the blondes shoulder, "he's our friend as well. If you need any help."

"I know, I know," Quatre backed away, "but for now, I just want to do this alone. Please just try and understand that, ok?" Wufei nodded and Quatre retreated back to his room.

Trowa was lying peacefully on his bed, eyes closed and mouth partly opened, breathing gently. Quatre watched him from the doorway for a few moments, enjoying the peaceful tone the presided over the room. It made him happy to see Trowa so relaxed. For a moment it seemed perfect, until Quatre noticed a small bit of red on the bed sheets. Coming closer he realized it was a dabble of blood. Swallowing hard, Quatre lifted up the bed sheets to find a huge stain of blood starring right back at him. Above, he could clearly see Trowa's stitches, still raw and bleeding.

Quatre clutched his stomach, feeling it become tighter and tighter. The blood, it's dark red color, the deathly smell......he suddenly felt light headed. His mind began to recall the escape on the ship, his brutal beating and Trowa's rape. All that blood..

There was a sudden rush of pain to the back of Quatre's head and the blonde soon found he was barely able to stand up. He stumbled awkwardly for a moment before finding his chair near the bed. Once he was seated, he laid his head down on the bed beside Trowa and tried his best to get the bloody image out of hid head, though he could still smell the blood. He closed his eyes tightly and tried to focus on Trowa's rhythmic breathing. Soon, he was asleep.

The large red blocked letters read "1:06", or possibly "1:08." There was a large glare form the table top lamp, which made the clock difficult to read. Quatre lifted his head from the bed, it felt strangely heavy. He noticed his vision was back to the weak blur it had been once before and he couldn't find his glasses. He assumed he had either taken them off before he laid down or they'd fallen off in his sleep. After a bit of searching, Quatre found them resting on the top of his head. He laughed half heartedly at himself, it was the first slightly amusing thing to happen to him in quite some time.

Slipping the specs back on, the world became rich again with sight. Quatre sighed heavily as he turned to face Trowa who was still peacefully asleep.

Quatre rubbed the back of his head, trying to figure out what had woken him up, but his moment of thought was destroyed as Duo came busting through the door.

"Hey, I've been calling you for like five minutes! Come here, you have to see this!" Without answering him, Quatre got up and followed his braided friend into the living room. There, he saw Wufei and Heero once again sitting on the ground, though their eyes were more focused on the T.V. than their laptops.

"We just got the news report from America about the attack, can you believe it?"

"There's no real cause for celebration Duo," Heero said in a dark voice, "that means the attack has been covered on every news channel in almost every country on earth. You think that's a good thing?"

"Yeah huh!" Duo cheered excitedly, Wufei just shook his head and tried to hide a small smile.

"Is that what you brought me out here for?" Quatre asked, feeling a bit annoyed.

"No, no, there's something you have to see, here, sit down." Duo motioned toward the couch, covered with papers of course. Quatre sat himself down and watched the news report to see what all the excitement about. Then, a familiar face came onto the screen.

"Captain Aidan Renshaw, a young up-and-comer on the OZ force was also tragically killed in the explosion." Quatre had a sudden feeling as if he was falling. Seeing those honey brown eyes again, starring back at him...Quatre soon realized her could head the boy's voice echoing in his head.

"The death total in now up in the thousands. This destructive act against OZ so far has no real explanation. Many theories point to terrorism in the knowledge that the ship had been ripped open from the bottom by a series of bombs. But considering the ship, The Descendant, was one of the newest on the fleet and had seen no action it's a mystery why the ship was attacked."

"So?" Duo asked, grinning moronically.

"So?" Quatre repeated.

"He's dead! He's dead, he's gone, can you believe it?"

"I suppose he is," Quatre said quietly. He was silent for a moment, the meekly, "good, he got what he deserved." Heero raised an eyebrow, not truly convinced by Quatre's words.

And he had a reason to be suspicious. Quatre really didn't feel full knowing that Renshaw was dead, it didn't take away the pain. It didn't make him whole, it didn't make Trowa whole. It couldn't fill the quiet void that existed somewhere now inside of Quatre. Renshaw was dead, and it didn't really matter, it just didn't.

"I'm going back to bed," Quatre said, getting up from his spot.

"Hey," he heard Duo call to him, "you planning to change those clothes any time soon?" Quatre looked down and realized he had been wearing the same clothes that he had on when he left on the mission. Suddenly felt very, very disturbed...

It felt nice to slip into some pajamas, and Quatre was quite glad that he had done the wash before he left. Being in his nice warm clean pj's somehow made him feel more relaxed. His bed was still well made, unwrinkled linen sheets and two soft down pillows. It was calling his name, but Quatre knew the best place for his was by Trowa's side, his friend needed him to be close.

As Quatre lay his head back down on the bed, the familiar smell of blood filled his nostrils.

"The sheets," he whispered quietly to himself. He knew he couldn't just leave them on there. Quickly, he glanced at Trowa and saw his friend was still in a deep sleep. Then, he pulled the blankets of the bed to once again reveal the ruined sheets. Quatre cringed as he carefully removed the sheets from the bed. The bright red stain was now a brownish, rusted color, and the raw skin around Trowa's stitches wasn't looking any better. It was a task trying to move Trowa's body so he could collect the sheets, but Quatre was able to do it, and not wake his friend on top of that.

As he was rolling up the sheets, he noticed a stain on the mattress, but it wasn't blood, it lacked the rusty color. Quatre unrolled the sheets and noticed that there was another stain on the sheets he hadn't noticed before. It didn't take the blonde long to figure out what it was.

He felt awful, just standing over his friend, holding a set of wet sheets. The burden on Quatre's back suddenly got heavier. In a sleepy and dazed state he wandered back out into the hallway to do laundry. The trip wasn't too long thankfully, since the washer and dryer were both in the downstairs closet. The only problem was, it drew attention from the other boys.

"Is that you Quatre?" came Heero's voice.

"Yeah.." Quatre answered meekly.

"It's like 1:30 in the morning, what the hell are you doing?"

"Laundry," Quatre answered in an even softer voice. Looking up, he could see Heero standing at the other end of the hall looking at him quite seriously.

"What for?" He asked as if Quatre were hiding something.

"There was some blood on the sheets," Quatre showed them to Heero, careful not to show him the other wetness.

"Blood?" came both Wufei and Duo's voice, and they soon popped up behind their leader. Quatre felt a bit embarrassed now, he wasn't really excited about disclosing the news of Trowa's stitches.

"Where did the blood come from?" Heero asked in that same monotone, yet strangely frightening tone he used just before he ripped someone in half with his Gundam.

"Trowa, Sally gave him some stitches.."

"So," Wufei said grimly, "that's the screaming we heard earlier." Quatre didn't say anything, he preferred to pretend that the other boys didn't hear the screams.

"Well," Heero said, turning back to his work, "make it snappy, and don't make too much noise. We're still watching the news."

The problem was that no matter how silent one tried to be, the washing machine had a habit of making more noise than anything else in the house. At times the boys debated replacing the old thing, but since it was rarely used (and I do mean rarely) the debates never truly lasted that long. Though that night, I'm sure the boys, especially poor Quatre who almost no sleep, would have liked to have had something more updated.

Somehow through all the racket, Trowa remained sound asleep, breathing gently.