Disclaimer: I don't own Weiss Kreuz.

A/N: Apologies for the spelling error! I've gone back and tried to switch "Atsuka" to "Asuka" in chapter one. I knew I should've watched the English dubbed version of Gluhen with the subtitles ON and not off. (I could have sworn there was a 't' sound in her name, but I guess not) Apologies too for any errors in this chapter – I somehow deleted the original version and had to retype it, and I wanted to get it posted this weekend so Heta Noitio wouldn't be disappointed (those chibi eyes work every time).

CHAPTER TWO

"I still can't believe I'm doing this. You should really be in the hospital," the blonde girl said from the driver's seat.

She'd told them her name was Gretchen Anderson, and she'd volunteered to drive Aya to her apartment to hide out, after Aya had vetoed her suggestion that they go to the police, saying that it was 'too dangerous'.

"I'll be fine," Aya grated out unconvincingly.

Takeo – no – 'Yohji' sat next to him in the back seat, tensed to catch Aya if he should lose consciousness. Aya's head lolled against the car's backrest, his eyes closed. The hospital was so busy that incredibly no one had noticed them walking Aya to the car. Aya was wearing his own pants and Yohji's jacket, which replaced the shirt and coat the hospital staff cut off him.

The hospital. Asuka.

"I have to call my wife." Yohji got out his cell phone, then froze as Aya's hand reached out and grabbed it.

"What will you say to her?" Aya asked.

Yohji hesitated. "I don't know, but I have to tell her something or she'll worry."

A glimmer of something, envy perhaps, glinted in Aya's eyes before he closed them and released his grip on the cell phone.

Yohji dialed and connected, unable to help the relieved smile that crossed his lips at the sound of Asuka's voice.

"Mushi mushi," she said, the commonplace Japanese phone greeting sounding reassuringly normal to Yohji's ear.

"Asuka, it's Takeo."

"Where are you? Hitomi was released from her duty. We can go to dinner now if you don't mind somewhere casual. Where are you? You've been gone fifteen minutes."

Fifteen minutes? Was that really only as long as it had been? Choosing his words carefully, Yohji replied. "Asuka, something's come up. I want you to go to dinner with Hitomi and I'll just meet you back at the hotel room, OK?"

"Something's come up?" Asuka's voice sounded worried. "Is it your work?"

Now was the moment of truth. Did he lie to his wife and let her think that nothing had changed for him? She'd always told him he should live in the moment and not worry about his past, but neither he nor she had ever thought his past might jump out of nowhere and drag him back in.

Yohji took a deep breath. "No. It's not my work. I met someone who might be able to tell me about my past."

There was a silence, and Yohji wished desperately that he could see Asuka's face, see what expression crossed her features.

"What?" The word was a mere breath. She sounded stunned. He didn't blame her.

Yohji could feel Aya's gaze on him, evaluating, calculating. He ignored it and stared at the back of Gretchen's head.

"I'll tell you about it later, if it turns out that he can tell me anything important." Yohji lowered his voice. "He recognized me, Asuka. I didn't go looking for him."

It was important for him to tell her that his life with her was everything, that his past could go hang for all he cared. He wasn't discontent with her or with their life together. Living with her made him realize that there was nothing more that he needed than their apartment, his job, and knowing that she was there every night to come home to. She had to know that, but he couldn't come right out and say it the way he wanted, not with Aya and Gretchen listening in.

"I know that. I trust you. I'll see you back at the hotel," Asuka said simply. With relief, Yohji heard the calm certainty in her voice. She understood what he'd tried so obliquely to say. She was like that, always seeming to know what he needed to hear.

"Goodbye, Asuka."

"Goodbye. I love you."

Yohji shut the cell phone's cover to disconnect the call and left it in his hand, the faint heat of it warming his palm. He gripped it gently for a second, then stuck it back in his pocket.

o-o-o

Aya was quiet the rest of the way to Gretchen's apartment. He hissed involuntarily when he got out of the car though, and then had to walk half a block to her building. Gretchen and Yohji supported him on either side, and he was appalled to discover how much he needed their help. His legs felt like wet udon noodles, and the numbness around the wound in his side was beginning to wear off.

After the second flight of stairs, he was ready to drop. By the third, Gretchen and Yohji were more dragging him up the stairs than supporting his steps. Finally they made it to her door. Gretchen dropped her purse on the ground and was nearly crying with frustration before she found her door key and let them in.

The place was small, one rectangular room with bathroom and closet doors off to the side. A queen sized antique wrought iron bed, painted white stood against the right wall. A sofa facing a bookcase with a small TV on top was along the left, and the back of the room was a kitchenette with a small round table and two chairs.

Aya let them drag him over to the bed, where he sank back, feeling dampness and a trickle down his side as he did so. It didn't come as a surprise when Gretchen gasped and said, "Aya! You're bleeding!"

He winced. How had she learned his…? Oh yeah. Yohji had asked his name in the hospital, and Aya gave it unthinkingly. Whatever drugs he'd been given at the hospital slowed his thought processes, but not to the point where he'd forgotten Yohji's amnesia.

Aya and Omi both made the decision to leave Yohji alone in the hospital to recover after their last battle with Esset, hoping for his sake that the doctors were right and his memories would never return. There was always a risk one of their old enemies would run into Yohji one day, but remembering the guilt-ridden anguish in their friend's eyes the night he almost betrayed them to Esset, they decided it was worth the risk. The man deserved some peace after what he'd been through.

Yohji's guilt had nearly eaten him alive. Having to kill your lovers would do that to a man. Esset offered to erase those memories, and before he'd come to his senses, Yohji had been tempted to join them. Aya cursed himself for not realizing at the time how badly his friend was suffering.

Now everything Aya and Omi had done to protect Yohji was ruined. When Aya saw the gunman coming down the hall, his drug befuddled brain registered the threat, but seeing Yohji there so unexpectedly, he'd thought the gunman had come for Yohji. He'd called out Yohji's name to warn him before remembering that Yohji wasn't part of Weiss anymore.

He'd have to deal with the fallout from that later. For now, getting the bleeding to stop was a priority.

"It'll be fine," he told Gretchen, noticing her shocked pale face staring at his side, where blood was drenching Yohji's jacket. She looked like she was about to faint. "I just need…"

"You need a doctor," Yohji broke in roughly, opening his cell phone. "And I happen to know one."

Aya tried to sit up. "No, it's too dangerous."

Yohji stared back coldly. "You keep saying that, but you never explain why."

"I shouldn't have to." Aya said sharply, the pain making him impatient.

"Aya…" came Gretchen's voice, distressed at the rising tension between the two.

He glanced over at the girl, missing his chance to knock the phone out of Yohji's hand. Assuming he still had the strength to do something like that. Aya hated feeling weak. He leaned back against the pillows, and saw that Gretchen was still wearing the pink rain boots she'd had on when she found him bleeding in the street.

He recognized her when he woke up in the hospital and saw her standing in the hallway next to his gurney. She went to Sister Mary's church. He'd seen her in the congregation when he'd slip in sometimes at the tail end of the sermon to drop off money for the orphans. When he saw her in the hospital, he realized she must have been the one to bring him there.

Yohji was talking into the phone again.

"Asuka? Could you and Hitomi come to this address? I need you." Yohji gave the directions crisply and efficiently, describing the street, building number and apartment precisely. He may have amnesia, but his powers of observation and memory were just as sharp as when he'd been in Weiss.

"Someone's been hurt and they're refusing to go to the hospital. Yes. Right. See you soon."

Yohji closed the phone and stared at Aya. "We need to talk."

Aya nodded wearily. He owed him the truth, if he wanted it.

"I never could refuse you," he said, his mouth quirking up into an ironic half-smile as he remembered giving in to Yohji's demand outside of Esset Headquarters that they fight each other to the death if necessary.

Yohji stared back intently, seeming to sense that there was a memory behind Aya's words.

The girl, Gretchen, walked past them to the door and fumbled for the doorknob, discomfort and embarrassment in her every move.

"I…um, I'll just leave the two of you alone. You obviously have, er, issues, and I need to go shopping for…soup! That's it, I'll need chicken soup if Aya is going to stay here." Her hands shot up to her mouth and she mumbled around her fingers, "I mean, if he wants to stay. If he wants to live with you, I mean, if you're living together…er…"

Yohji broke off staring at Aya and looked over at her blankly.

Aya sighed. Gretchen had picked up on the strong emotions in the room, but she'd leapt to the wrong conclusion. "We're not gay lovers, we used to work together is all. We were friends."

A look of relief passed over the girl's face as she lowered her hands. "Oh thank God," she sighed, then blushed. Aya's eyes widened slightly in surprise. The blush seemed to be traveling over her whole body, face, neck, and even the wrists under her coat's cuffs seemed to be going red. It was…intriguing.

"I'll just be going then," she squeaked, and ran out the door, closing it firmly behind her.

"Were we?" Yohji asked, still standing over by the sofa, as if he couldn't bear to come any closer to Aya. Aya didn't blame him. Yohji must be reeling at the thought of finding someone from his past who had a gunman after him, but Aya was still too doped up and beginning to feel pain to bother sugarcoating anything.

"Were we what?" he asked, evenly.

"Friends. Were we friends?"

Aya sighed and looked away. Friends, comrades in arms, brothers in arms, enemies for one instant, they'd been all that one time or another.

"Yes," he answered firmly. "We were friends." He glanced at Yohji to see how he was taking it.

The fair-haired man nodded slowly, and frowned introspectively. "And we worked together." It was a statement rather than a question, but there was a trace of dread in Yohji's voice. "Worked together doing what?"

"We were members of a group called Weiss Kreuz, the Knight Hunters. We took down criminals the law couldn't touch."

"Took down," Yohji repeated wonderingly. "You mean…"

"Yes. We killed them." Aya stared at his former colleague, and saw the denial, then acceptance in his eyes as Yohji raised his hands and stared at the palms as if looking for bloodstains.

"I…killed." He stared at his hands some more, then raised his eyes. "Why don't I remember?"

Aya's thoughts went back to that night, the night they learned Esset was ruled, not by a woman as they'd thought, but by a supercomputer called Epitaph. An affiliate of Weiss, the Crusher Group, set bombs along the building, forcing the computer to shut down and allowing Omi to slip in a virus that destroyed it once and for all. Esset's heart was ripped out, but the bombs did their job all too well.

"You were caught in an explosion. Half the building fell on you. We got you to the hospital, but the doctors said you'd never regain your memory. You wanted to get out of the business anyway, so we left you alone."

Strong emotion creased Yohji's face as his brow furrowed. "Yes," he said slowly. "It's hazy but…I dream sometimes that I'm talking to a woman. She says she can take the pain away." He frowned. "I killed her, didn't I?"

"You killed a lot of people." Aya told him. "As did I."

"I remember…bits and pieces sometimes. Faces. Blood. But I don't remember what I did or what I said. I see blood sometimes, but I don't remember how I felt about it. It's like watching a movie or a play and then remembering only bits and pieces of it later. I thought maybe it really was memories of a movie. Stupid, huh?"

For a second, Yohji's old familiar grin pasted itself across his face, then he thrust his fingers through his short, fair hair and fisted them, grimacing, and letting his breath out in a rush.

"You hated it." Aya told him, not wanting to see the pain in Yohji's eyes again. "That's why you wanted to leave. It gets to be too much after a while."

It was getting to be too much for Aya too, but he stopped himself from sharing that with his friend. There was no sense in imposing his personal hell on Yohji. He'd taken enough away from the man tonight as it was.

A knock sounded at the door.

Aya noticed with a cynical amusement that Yohji unconsciously took on a fighting stance, hips at an angle to the door, hands pulled halfway down between his shoulders and thighs. He may have forgotten being an assassin, but his body hadn't.

Then Yohji relaxed and walked to the door, pulling it open to let in a shorthaired Japanese woman carrying a large handbag, and a pretty, slim one with a ponytail. By the way her eyes lit up when she saw Yohji, Aya knew the thinner one had to be Asuka.

The other woman left them to their greetings and marched over to Aya. Her eyes lit too, with recognition as she pointed an accusing finger at him.

"You're my knife wound operation. What are you doing out of the hospital?"

Aya sighed. It was going to be a long night.

TO BE CONTINUED

Reviewer Responses:

Anendee – Hope chapter two lives up to your expectations. You watch anime before 8:00 A.M.! Holy cow, you must get up early! I'm in awe!

Evalita – I hated the ending too. Killing off Aya was evil! I'm glad you liked my version.

MikaSamu – I'm glad you liked the beginning!

Bewsbud – Sorry for the spelling error (see A/N above). I know Aya's eyes are purple (and what a lovely violet hue they are too. Sighs dreamily.), but since no one in real life actually has purple eyes, I decided to go with the next best real life human eye color. It was either that or have Aya wear purple tinted contact lenses, but that just didn't seem like something he'd do. I'm attempting to make the story as plausible as possible, though how plausible a story about a modern day assassin using a katana and striding dramatically through the mean streets in a billowing trench coat can be is a matter of debate! Anyhow, I hope my slip ups didn't mess up the story for you too badly. I appreciate the heads up!

Heta Noita – Chibi eyes? Oh no! Not the dreaded chibi eyes! How can I resist? I'll try to update once a week from now on. I'm glad you liked Gretchen, since she'll be in the next chapter as well.

Elven-girl10 – I know what you mean about not liking what happened to Aya. Poor guy! Why him? Of all the characters they had to pick on, why the one that uses his money to save orphans, and has a sister who'd be devastated by his loss? That was just cruel!

Nekotsuki – Redheads with swords and redemption issues rule the world! (or they would if I were in charge of it!) Don't worry about emailing me back, sometimes I cringe when I open my email account and see the masses of unanswered email waiting for me, so I can't really fault you for avoiding yours. Besides, reviews count as communication too, and I always love getting reviews from you!