A/N: pout I didn't get very many reviews. sulks Well, that's okay…I guess songfics don't get as many reviews as other fics. I have all of the songs picked out for what I'm going to do now, and it will either be ten or eleven chapters because I can't make up my mind on whether or not to add the eleventh song in. Anyway, please read. This chapter gets a little bit more into Heero's inferiority complex.

To Angel Yuy, one of the chapters will be the song Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day. As it so happens, the first two chapters happen to be songs by Evanescence, but these are the only songs by that band that I'm planning to use. I couldn't think of a title for the story, and I thought Boulevard of Broken Dreams was a good one—especially considering that I was already planning to use it. I think it'll be the third or fourth chapter. We'll see.

Chapter Two

Lies

Thalia set a bowl of oatmeal down in front of Hitomi. "Feeling okay?"

"Not really," Hitomi said, stirring the oatmeal half-heartedly. "I keep worrying…Heero's only getting worse."

"Is he still refusing to get help?"

"Yeah." She looked up into Thalia's eyes. "I know I should just drag him to a mental hospital and force him to get help, but…"

"I don't think you can do that, unless he's violent," Thalia said matter-of-factly, pouring cinnamon over Hitomi's cereal.

Hitomi smiled weakly. "Thanks." She took a small bite of it. "Tastes good. But anyway, I don't think I can honestly say Heero isn't violent right now."

"Why?" Thalia's voice took an alarmed turn, her brown eyes wide. "Did he hurt you?"

"No, nothing like that. He's screaming at people that aren't there, and yesterday…" Hitomi bit her lip before continuing. "…yesterday, when I was there, he started yelling at no one and scratching his face. He was bleeding. I have his arms tied to the bed now."

Thalia shook her head. "We should really take him to the mental institution, Tomi. We can't do anything for him here. If Heero's only getting worse…" She broke off when she saw the look on Hitomi's face. She looked half-angry and half-depressed, her eyes fixed firmly upon the oatmeal that she had barely touched. "What…"

"He won't go," she muttered. "When I suggested it yesterday, he only said 'no doctors.' He seemed scared just thinking about it…"

"But he's only going to get worse if we keep him here."

"I know, but I doubt sending him to an asylum is going to help him much, either. He keeps refusing to see doctors. If he's refusing that, do you really think sending him to a psychiatrist will help? He won't respond to them! And he'll probably refuse the medicine…and food."

"He's refusing the food here, too," Thalia pointed out.

"Not all of it," Hitomi replied. "Yesterday he ate. I don't think he slept very much the night before…"

Thalia was pouring a third bowl of oatmeal. Hitomi frowned. "What are you doing?"

"I'm bringing this down to Heero. I can see it upsets you to see him like this…and I wasn't that close to him." She turned back to Hitomi and bent down low enough to kiss her gently. "Besides, if it's as good as you say, he can't resist it, right?"

Hitomi smiled weakly. "I guess so."

"Of course. And while I'm trying to convince him to eat it, you eat your oatmeal, too. You've barely touched it."

Heero stared at the ceiling. With nothing left to do, he started counting the tiles on the ceiling, and what he could see of the tiles on the floor.

Foolish boy…

"Leave me alone."

You don't deserve peace, you don't deserve to live, selfish boy, son of a murderer, freak of nature…

He closed his eyes, feeling a headache beginning to develop. He was starting to feel hungry. Maybe Hitomi would be by with food soon. There was no window and no clock, so he didn't know if it was around time for breakfast yet.

You don't deserve food, you deserve to starve, you don't deserve freedom, you deserve pain…

If he kept yelling at the Voice, he would only make his own voice hoarse. It wouldn't matter if he yelled, anyway. The Voice never listened to him. Oh, it heard him well enough, but it never obeyed his commands. His pleas and cries only brought more taunting. As if he didn't know on his own that he was worthless.

The door opened, interrupting his musings. "Heero?"

It wasn't Hitomi. "Thalia?" Heero guessed. He hadn't seen her in years. But he had kept in touch with Hitomi by e-mail, and he knew that they had been living together.

"I brought some food," Thalia said cheerfully. "It's oatmeal. Hitomi says it's to die for."

You don't deserve food, sneered the Voice.

"Thanks," Heero said without enthusiasm.

Thalia knelt down next to the bed. "How do you feel?"

"Terrible." You don't deserve to feel anything else but pain, foolish child, selfish child, monster…

"What's wrong? Did something happen while you were in Europe?" Thalia asked.

This one pretends to care as well…it lies, it does not care, it wants to get rid of you just like its consort… "I don't think so." He frowned. "No. I think I just…" Murderer… "Finally lost it."

"Lost what? Your sanity?" Thalia inquired.

"Unless normal, sane people hear voices, I would think so." Heero wondered momentarily what the Voice would think about the comment, but it didn't offer its opinion. That was a first.

In more ways than one. That was the first time he had admitted out loud that he was hearing a Voice.

"Are the voices people you know?" Thalia pressed. "People you…killed, maybe?"

"It's one Voice. And I don't know who it is." He remembered it taking Relena's form in his dream, but it wasn't Relena's voice. She wouldn't have said such things, either. She pities you, foolish child, pity is not love, you do not deserve pity, you do not deserve to live…

"Do you hear it now?"

"I always hear it."

"I'll take that as a yes, then." Thalia frowned. "Is it…a woman's voice?"

He thought about it. "It…no. It's not a man's voice, either. It can't seem to make up its mind what gender it is. Whenever it talks about people, it refers to them all as 'it' instead of 'he' or 'she.'" Except Relena, the Voice pointed out. "Except for Relena Darlian."

"Hmm. Maybe you should see someone…"

"No doctors!" Heero snapped immediately. It lied, it wants to get rid of you, it doesn't care about you, it wants you out of its house…

"Is the Voice telling you not to go to a doctor?" Thalia asked. "Because the Voice seems to be hurting you. Hitomi and I are taking care of you…maybe you shouldn't listen to the Voice."

It lies, the Voice insisted. "It says…you're a liar." Foolish child, do not tell it such things, it will hurt you… "If you're worried about her hurting me, you wouldn't be saying I deserve pain!" Heero snapped, unaware at first that he had spoken out loud.

Thalia looked baffled. "Heero?"

"It's just…" He felt suddenly very stupid, like a child with an imaginary friend. He sighed. "Where am I, anyway?"

"In Osaka," Thalia replied.

That was right. Hitomi had been living in Osaka for the past two years. She was originally from Tokyo, but Heero doubted she wanted to be that close to her mother. The two of them didn't get along, especially since she started dating Thalia. "How did I get here?"

"Don't you remember?" When he shook his head, she sighed. "I guess you came by plane or something. You showed up at the doorstep one day. No car, no vehicle. You couldn't have walked all the way from Europe to Japan without crossing water, especially with Japan being an island. I can't believe you don't remember."

"What's the date?"

"March 16. You've been here for over three months."

"Three?"

"Mm-hmm." She reached over to the straps, untying one. "Eat the oatmeal. It's good for you. While you're eating, maybe you should think about what I said about a doctor."

"I'll think about it."

"We could find one in Sanc if you want," she offered.

"Sanc?" he repeated.

She nodded. "You had friends there, right? The other Gundam pilots, and the Darlian girl. Speaking of her…she's pretty, intelligent, talented…why haven't you dated her? I'd say she's definitely your type."

You don't deserve her, the Voice replied. That was the one definite truth the Voice had ever spoken. He shrugged at Thalia, and she left him alone to eat.

Bound at every limb by my shackles of fear,
Sealed with lies through so many tears.
Lost from within, pursuing the end,
I fight for the chance to be lied to again.

Why does it have to be this way? It was his own thought, not the Voice's, that made him bitter. He had been a genius of a child, a bright and intelligent little boy, always curious, always questioning the world around him. He had astounded adults with his large vocabulary, his knowledge that belonged to a far older person than himself. What had he done then to deserve this now?

Foolish child…you do not see the mistakes you have made, you are a monster, you do not deserve to live…

Heero closed his eyes, and the Voice seeped through his mind, reminding him of every failure he had ever made.

You will never be strong enough.
You will never be good enough.
You were never conceived in love.
You will not rise above.

Every time he closed his eyes, every time he left them open, the Voice was there. He had always been plagued with nightmares. It was in the daytime that the Voice stole his sanity, but now it had plans to wreck his dreams as well. Here it couldn't take a form…but it enraged him that it could use Relena as a vessel to do its evil. Relena would not have taken part in any plan to hurt a man in this way, even a man with as many sins on his record as Heero had.

"Relena…" he muttered out loud. Everything else was blood, darkness, and chaos. But when he thought of Relena, he thought of the way her face lit up when she smiled, melted his glacier of a heart…the look in her eyes when she talked about something she was passionate about. Her message of absolute pacifism. She was…so incredible. Too perfect to be a human. She had to be an angel…

But through my tears breaks a blinding light,
Birthing a dawn to this endless night.
Arms outstretched, awaiting me:
An open embrace upon a bleeding tree.

And you would stain her further with your blood, darkness, and chaos, selfish child, son of a murderer, freak of nature…

No. He could think about her all he wanted, remember the way she had felt in his arms when she hugged him, but he could never touch her again. He couldn't even look upon her…he would pollute her. Like the red of the snow that Christmas Eve when he was six years old, he would tarnish her.

And besides that, Heero thought, I don't believe in God, or in angels. He saw no possibility that there was a higher being out there controlling all that went on. If there was, it was a God not worth praying to. He left His children in violence, blood, and war. He let people like Heero come to be. A loving God would have killed him on sight.

You don't deserve death…

"No. I don't."

Rest in me, and I'll comfort you.

I have lived and I died for you.

Abide in me and I vow to you.

I will never forsake you.

If He existed, perhaps God had never truly abandoned Heero. Perhaps He had never been with him at the start. Maybe that was why when he walked down a street, looking at all the smiling faces, they didn't seem to see him. He wasn't one of them, but something else.

A monster, foolish child, a freak of nature, a murderer, that's what you are, you are worthless, you don't deserve to live, you don't deserve to die, there is no punishment great enough for you, you are not good enough…

"Never good enough." A bitter and humorless laugh came from between his dry lips.

Relena was probably worried. Sitting in her desk, shuffling through paperwork, she was probably staring at the teddy bear he had given her, wondering what had happened to him, wondering why he never said good-bye…

Duo…well, Duo was Duo. Likely, he'd be making jokes about Heero's disappearance to co-workers, trying to make it seem like it meant less than it did. But he would stay up at night, staring at the moon like he always did, worrying.

Quatre would have been the next-most-worried out of the Gundam pilots. But he wouldn't hold it all in like Duo. He would talk over it with Trowa, who would tell him he felt exactly the same way. The two of them would talk over their feelings about Heero's absence. Wufei might join in. He might not. Chances were, he wasn't that worried. He probably figured Heero was a big boy and could take care of himself.

Wufei was wrong to think Heero was so strong…he saw what he wanted to see. Quatre and Duo also saw Heero as a figure of strength, while accepting that he occasionally made mistakes. Trowa was probably the closest to figuring out what was really going on in Heero's mind, and even he was way off.

They'll never see.

I'll never be.

I'll struggle on and on to feed this hunger,

Burning deep inside of me.

Relena…

Do not think of her, selfish child, do not tempt yourself, she does not need your presence, she does not need you staining her, she pities you, you don't deserve her love…

"I know, I know already," he shouted, his voice somewhat hoarse. "Can't you even let me imagine it?"

Monster, freak of nature, you do not deserve her love, you do not deserve that pleasure…

The freakish lullaby went on and on, circling the room until he fell asleep.

Okay, that's the end of chapter two. Let's see some reviews, okay!

IF YOU DO NOT REVIEW, I WILL EAT YOUR EYEBROWS!

(And don't think I'm kidding.) .