Halfway up in the elevator, I lean back against the wall of it, and close my eyes, swallowing against my raw throat. I've been crying, silently, since last night. It hurts to have to be this strong, sometimes. I feel the tears burning my eyes, and they start to flow, silently.

"Your floor, ma'am," a polite voiced orderly says. I nod and step out, keeping my eyes closed most of the way as I head towards Trowa's room. I nod to the nurse on duty and she signs me in herself.

I'm here that often.

Inside his room, it is quiet. The blip of his heart monitor is all that makes noise. He breathes on his own. I sit down in the chair by his bed.

"Hey, Trowa. Bet you're not surprised to find me here again, huh?" No response, as usual. "I bet you're surprised to find me crying this time, though." I lean back in the chair. "I… almost got mugged last night. I know this isn't something that you're supposed to worry about, but I needed to tell someone, and you were the only person I felt I could. The guy was waiting in the parking garage downstairs from Wufei's apartment and I guess I was the lucky one. He pulled a gun on me, and I thought I was going to die. I stopped thinking. I don't know how you guys managed that on a daily basis during the war because all I wanted to do at that point was lay down and let him do it. I know it's wrong, but I wanted to just let that be the end of it all."

I brush a few strands of my hair back from my face.

"I guess that's how you feel about Quatre, isn't it? Why you said that Wufei would make it back to me like you weren't planning to come back yourself. You had something back here, Trowa, something better than Jean to come back to. I know, now, why you didn't accept it as readily as you might have. Things are the same way between me and Fei, now. I love him but I… I can't stand to be with him right now. He hides things." I stand, heading over to the window, and glance out. There are no bars on things on this floor, and it doesn't open to let in fresh air.

The scent of hospitals is familiar to me, and yet at the same time it sickens me. He shouldn't be in here.

"Damn it, Trowa, you need to get out of bed! I'm tired of this. I'm tired of coming here and leaving him to see you. I have no one to talk to but you and you're in coma. I'm tired of having to do this alone, to think things through like this. I'm tired of watching Quatre's eyes look so lost downstairs, and wondering why Jean hasn't been in to see you at all. He hasn't, you know. But Quatre's been waiting downstairs. For weeks. I'm tired of everyone being sick, and there being nothing I can do about it."

I take a deep breath, forcing back the tears that are suddenly welling up in my eyes. This is so much like my father, and yet not. "But it's not like that," my voice waivers in my own ears, I can only imagine what I sound like. Some weak woman, probably. "I know what you're thinking, that it's her that's keeping him down there, but it's not. I don't think he can bear to come up here. I don't think I can anymore either. But I do, and it's for him. Because whatever's between you and Quatre you love each other and that's worth something."

The heart monitor makes a different blip and I turn towards it.

There's a raspy chuckle from the bed that draws my eyes back there to Trowa. "Didn't know… guilt tripping… coma patients… was supposed to … be … treatment," he sputters.

I step over to him, dashing the tears from my own eyes, and click the call button for the nurse. "You're worse than Wufei," I say, taking his hand in my own.

"Maybe," he says, gagging a little.

"Don't try to talk, you've got a tube down your throat. It's been there a while."

He rolls his eyes.

I glance at the clock. "The nurse will be here shortly, I've got to go and meet Wufei downstairs. His appointment was only for half an hour."

"Be… patient… with him, Sally. He's … still learning." That's the second time Trowa's said that to me. It's still true. But right now I don't really care.

"Right, Trowa," I say as cheerfully as I can manage. I turn and head out the door, passing the nurse, and head for the elevators.

In the lobby, I find Wufei waiting, seated in the waiting room with his jacket folded across his lap. And mine is sitting in a chair next to him. His hair is loose around his face and his hands are folded on top of the coat. As I cross, he stands, and lifts my jacket to offer it to me.

His hands brush my collar as he helps me into it, and I shiver. "How did it go?"

"There will be treatment," he says in that haughty, over-important voice. But the hand that seeks mine is still tentative, and I know that he's scared by the idea of it.

"Laser surgery?"

He nods, and I lead him out of the lobby, the prior evening's fight virtually forgotten in the face of his timidity. We reach the car, his hand steadying me across the lingering ice as much as I am guiding him in his partial sight, and he pulls me up against him, holding me tight around the waist.

"Fei," I say softly after a long moment, but he isn't listening. "Fei, what is it?"

"I'm sorry I can't tell you what you need to know about me. That I can't… be open enough for you. It's not that I don't want to… that I want to keep you at arm's length like this." He's being open, and he puts his cheek against mine, and keeps whispering, "I want to."

"I never thought any different," I reply, knowing it's true. "I believed you, when you said…" but I can't finish the sentence.

"That I love you," he finishes for me after a moment. That's true, and the grip that he has on my waist is only the physical proof of it, I know. I lean my forehead on his shoulder and inhale deeply the scent of his coat. Green tea and tiger's balm. Reassurance.

His lips brush my cheek.

I should say back to him what I already know is true. What I've known for months is true. I should tell him that this isn't one-sided and that I love him just as much as he loves me, but something makes me hold back. Something keeps me from opening my lips and spilling my heart out to him as easily as he has just broken with me about his own reticence to speak.

And perhaps it is his reticence to speak that keeps me from blurting out what I think he needs to hear.

"Let's get in the car," I say, closing my eyes against the harshness in my own voice. He hugs me tighter for a moment, and kisses my cheek, as much contact as I've had with him since he came back. A hug and a kiss on the cheek. More than I ever had before he was away, before I went to China.

"As you say," he says, letting me go finally, reluctantly, and brushing his fingers on the car to keep his place as he rounds it.