Disclaimer: The characters in this story are not owned by me.
Dang it.

The boy was beautiful. Even with his unruly raven hair (which he had long since abandoned trying to tame) and red mahogany eyes that were gentle and piercing at the same time. He was a little too slim to be called physically impressive, but he moved with the grace of a skilled warrior, and carried himself with an assurance befitting his rank.
However, at that moment, there was no assurance in his stance. He raised his face above the pressing heat of the flames that roared around him. "Hitomi," he whispered, his voice a desperate plea.

The girl was not beautiful. There was too much sense in her face for that, but there was a harmony to her features, a unity of profile, that one felt eased when gazing upon her. Her movements were flowing. Fluid. The slightest gesture more expressive than any actor could hope to be, because her movements seemed to be as much a part of nature as of herself, as if in simply living, she was expressing the wishes of the universe. Her hair was slightly longer than shoulder length and was the exact color of crystallized honey. Her eyes were wide and a gentle forest green that somehow seemed to unmovingly search every person she met, as if she could see their entire life in their face.
This quality had only appeared in her two years before. Overnight, she had gone from being an average slightly-pretty teenage highschool girl into someone who somehow seemed to know all the secrets of life and was only playing the part of a teenage highschool girl.
However, at that moment, she seemed like any other girl as she sat up in her bed gasping, her body drenched with a cold sweat. Fearful, she looked out her window, up into the sky beside the moon.
Gaea. It wasn't there. Two weeks now and she still couldn't see it. At the same time, her communication with Van had been cut off, infrequent even as that was. She missed both with a longing that was a physical pain, as if her heart had been ripped out of her chest.
The dreams - nightmares - had begun a week later. Horrible images of Gaian cities burning, her friends desperately trying to defend themselves but still being injured. Dryden laying still on a bed with bloody bandages tied around him, Millerna crying beside him. Allen in tattered clothes, fighting despite the deep wound on his arm and leg. Chid in slightly burned clothes watching sadly on the deck of an airship as Freid burned.
Tonight had been the worst. Van, holding an unconscious Merle as the newly rebuilt Fanelia burned again.
"Oh, God," she whispered into the night. "Please let them just be nightmares..."

The next day was bright and cloudless, making it hard to believe there was trouble on Gaea, but Hitomi still felt uneasy.
She walked into the kitchen as her mother was just beginning to make breakfast.
"Oh," her mother exclaimed, "you're up early." She put a pot of water on the stove to boil and took the tea set out. "Something wrong?"
"No, just a bad night," Hitomi sighed, helping her mother set the table. "I kept having nightmares." She sat down at her place at the table.
"You've been having them all week," her mother said, looking at her daughter out of the corner of her eye as she poured dried rice into the boiling water, stirred it once, and covered it. She came over to the table and sat down across from Hitomi. "You know you can talk to me about anything."
Hitomi smiled at her mother, although it was a very sad, heart- catching smile. How could she tell her mother about everything that had happened to her? "I know, Mom," she said.
Her mother looked at her as if she knew Hitomi had something she wanted to tell her, but couldn't. "All right," she sighed, patting her daughter's hand lightly, as if to say, 'whenever you're ready.'
She rose, stirred the rice, and started making some scrambled eggs.
"Something sure smells good," her father said, coming down the stairs and entering the kitchen, followed by Hitomi's little brother.
"Yumm!" he exclaimed, bounding into his place beside Hitomi, holding his chopsticks as if the food were already in front of him.
Hitomi laughed and ruffled his hair.

"How you feeling? Not too tired?" her father asked as he drove the family to the national track meet. "If you don't feel up to it, you don't have to run," he said, but Hitomi could hear the disappointment in his voice at the notion.
"I feel fine. Don't worry Dad," she said, double checking her bag for the fifth time in the last half hour.
There was no way she could back out of this, even if she had wanted to. This was the first time her school had made it to Nationals. The whole school was either going to be there rooting for her - the star runner - or watching it on television. She couldn't let them all down.
Her father parked the car. They flashed little badges that allowed them to enter the locker room.
"You'll do fine," her father said at the entrance to the girls' locker room, giving her a quick kiss on the forehead. Then they left to find their seats.
As soon as she had entered the locker room, someone tackled her from behind, sending her sprawling across the floor.