After that night, things changed. I think I finally began to see Heero as a person and he began to let me see that I was right. He had seen through me, saw me as something more than a chattering, mindless idiot. On the surface, Heero seemed unbreakable, impenetrable. But if you looked closer, which I couldn't seem to stop doing, I could see the cracks in his armor. The sadness and pain in his eyes, hidden behind cold indifference.

My blanket tried to hold back my fears and his shield of uncaring fought against his. But unlike me and my blanket, when his shield shattered, he turned to his friends for support.

Here I am, again. Sitting in my window...a different one in a different safe house. But it is a window and I am wrapped in my blanket. It's much worse for wear than the last time Heero and I were together in a safe house. My futile attempts at sewing it back together have made it worse, I think.

I can't stop shaking. Every time I close my eyes I see it. I see them. Screaming and crying, hysterical in the face of their death. And it was my face they saw. My face imprinted on their minds as the breath was stolen from their bodies, the live from their souls.

We had orders to take out a military base. When we got the order, I got nervous. My mission of choice is to infiltrate and take information because I despise missions that involve only killing and destruction. That's not what we came down to Earth to do. But the base was making mobile dolls, so we were told to take it out. An order is still an order, even if we don't like it.

I drop my head into my hands, curl up with my knees close to my chest. "Damn those scientists! They didn't tell us...they never let on." I choke the words out through a throat too tight and too dry. I can't stand to keep my eyes closed anymore because all I see is them. I lift my head to look at myself in the window in front of me. I raise one trembling hand to touch it. Is this my face, so haggard and desolate? My eyes...I can't even recognize them. They're empty.

"Children" I whisper to myself...almost in contemplation and not in horror. Almost. "Who the hell keeps children on a military base during a war?"

Yeah, you heard right. I killed hundreds of families tonight...children, moms, dads, pets, friends. I feel the burn of tears behind my eyes and I blink, watch the drops fall silently onto my grey blanket where they make little, dark spots, almost like blood, "Fuck. I...I can't do this anymore...how many more kids am I gonna have to kill? How many more families to destroy?"

I stuff a corner of my blanket into my mouth to silence the sobs but they won't stay quiet and instead rise up in my throat, threatening to rip me in half. Pain, so strong it makes me sick, washes over me. I'm so lost in my memories that I don't notice when the door to my room opens and soft footsteps land against the carpet.

I barely acknowledge the hands that gently rest on my shoulders, waving one hand at them to feebly push them away. But in the state that I'm in, I yearn for human touch and so Heero turns my unresistant body towards his solid chest. Somehow I know it is Heero, I can feel him. But I can't make myself care that I am welcoming him into my hell. I need him to ground me, to hold me steady in a world filled with blood and pain.

He sits behind me and tugs gently on my shoulder, pulling me towards him. I crawl into his lap, which was slightly difficult because we're virtually the same size. But he adjusts and helps me until my face is resting on his shoulder. I curl into him, around his body, my arms clinging to his waist.

I bury my face into his skin, inhaling his clean smell. He is so alive, so warm and I am so cold. I try to talk, tell him what is wrong but my lips refuse to work. But I try anyway, because he has to know what he is getting himself into

"He..heer...I...ssssooo m-many fa-f-faces..."

"Shhhh," he wraps his arms tight around me, presses his lips to my hair, "I know, baby, I know." He knows. He understands, and still he stays. My self-inflicted loneliness is gone and in place of my blanket, I have Heero Yuy. The not-so perfect soldier. A soldier, like me. He understands, I repeat it in my mind like a mantra, he understands.

I feel myself shatter in his arms, feel him hold onto the pieces as tears course down my face, unstoppable. He holds onto me as I sob, he cries with me as we mourn those that we killed.

Together.

Tonight, I'm not alone.