Lying here, curled up next to her is bliss. I never thought I would find so much peace with any woman, and yet, at the same time, she seems to center me, to bring me a whole new relaxation that I never knew before her.

It was a nightmare that awoke me from slumber. I thought it might have woken her as well, the way that television shows and movies say things should happen. People in love are supposed to have some sort of bond in that regard.

Either we are not in love, or the media lies.

I am more tempted to believe that it is the media that lies.

So I am lying next to her, behind her, staring at the underside of the canopy over the bed. It seems old to me, but I am aware that it is only the tricks of my wounded eyes. I glance at her.

There is something entirely fascinating about the way that she breathes when she is falling asleep, or when she is dreaming. The rise and fall of her chest. The slight flare of her nostrils.

Fascinating, and precious.

Trowa's in the hospital. He hasn't woken up yet. The doctor's say that the outlook is good that he will, sometime soon, but I'm worn out of caring for other people. Not that I care for many people, but I do care about the others. About Duo and Heero and Trowa and Quatre. I just can't care about them right now. I'm too weary of it. We cared for the world, protected it, and then, as Duo found so easily, we were turned out by the world we shared.

I don't think that Quatre's taking this all too well. I told him to come and stay in my apartment until he felt he could return home, but he declined with some mumble or another about the scandal it would cause. And besides, he told me, I deserved to spend time in my apartment with Sai Lei.

One day I will have to come clean to her about all the things I hide from her, and from everyone. I know that. One day I will have to wash the blood off of my hands if I am going to touch her, as she wants me to, and as I wish to. But that day hasn't come.

Not when she's so worn out herself. Of everyone, she's spent the most time fretting over Trowa's accident. As though she feels to blame for the whole thing. We've all tried to tell her that it is not her fault, but she continues to go to the hospital and sit by his bed. Ever since the day she first drove me there, that day when I told her…

But she hasn't avoided me to go see Trowa. She's been right beside me, every evening, asleep as she is now, with her face nested against my chest. Plutonic intimacy, I believe, is the term that best describes the two of us over the past two weeks.

And tomorrow we're both 'officially' off-duty, and I'm scheduled to see the next of three specialists that Lady Une contacted about the damage done to my eyes.

She shifts.

"Fei?" her voice is groggy.

"Yes?" I ask, glancing at her in the moonlight as best I can. My vision has started to come back, some, and I can see most things, though everything is blurred. I'm not quite sure if it means that I need glasses or that there's permanent, irreparable damage.

"You're wide awake." She leans forward to kiss my neck and her hands tighten around me. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Wufei."

She rarely uses my full name unless she's certain I'm hiding something from her. She does not know how much of the time I hide things from everyone. Not for certain. She cannot. And I love her for that. I love her because she can love someone with so much hidden.

"Yes?" I ask, knowing my voice, so late in the darkness, betrays me.

"What is it?" When I do not answer, she continues. "What's wrong? Fei… talk to me… please?" She shifts her body, coming up on one elbow to look down at me where I lie, face turned up towards the ceiling that I cannot see through the canopy atop the bed. Her voice is beseeching. The green throw is over the two of us, proof against the economic chill in the air of the room. Her free hand lifts to brush the hair from my face, and I know she feels the trickle of sweat on my brow.

"Nothing," I reply again, and I can feel the moment that the word is out of my mouth that it is the wrong one to have said. She throws the blankets from her and struggles her way out of the bed, fighting her way free of our tangled limbs and over to the closet. "Sai Lei? Where are you going, it is two o'clock in the morning."

"I can read the clock too, ya know?" she snaps.

I sigh, closing my eyes and leaning my head back against the pillows.

I have been waiting for this moment, and fearing it. There is only ever so much of me that anyone can stand. Sai Lei. The other pilots. Even Meiran.

"Be ready by eight," she adds, irritably wrapping herself first in her robe and then in her jacket, bundling the scarf around her neck. She then bends over and trips her way right into her boots, from the noises I can hear of her in the hallway.

The door closes firmly behind her.

I reach over and straighten the bed linens, trapping what remains of the warmth she brought to it inside with me as I settle down, farther on the mattress, and inhale the scent of her clinging to me deeply. It was bound to happen.

But that does not mean that I do not hate that it has happened as much as is possible.