Author's Notes: Who here has read this week's Washington Post Magazine (July 16, 2006)? On the very last two pages, behind all that stuff about Israel and how much the world hates us Americans in general (though they shouldn't hate me personally, since I've never even invaded my neighbor's back yard, not to mention the rest of the world's) is Below The Beltway, a section I don't typically read simply because I'm a lazy person and I hate sifting through the newspapers on Sunday morning for a magazine I usually don't enjoy anyway. A friend of mine really enjoys it, so I sometimes take a peek to see what's going on. Well, Gene Weingarten, the journalist who wrote this weekend's (I don't know about other weekends) article, "Did You Ever Wonder, 'What if…?'". It goes into the reality of all those little speculations and common phrases we all hear, like 'What if money grew on trees', 'What if you could smell emotions?' and my favorite, 'What if the bacteria in out gut were sentient and could communicate with us, and began to demand civil rights?'.

Well…I thought it was funny…

5

Nagi looks like the rest of Japan, but his large eyes are strangely blue and they have a certain 'knowing' deep within their depths. They are the color of the Pacific when we flew over it. His round face is pale, almost Anglo-Saxon white from lack of sun and he is so thin his cheekbones stick out sharply. He's all pointy elbows and knobby knees poking out of the holes in his tatty clothes and he doesn't so much have a waist than a starved belly between his ribs and protruding hips.

I don't think I've ever seen a boy who looks like he survived the Holocaust in real life. I've seen pictures. He looks like those pictures with narrower eyes. I wonder if I planned enough food for the four of us because a fraternal sense that has long sat dormant just kicked in. I want to stuff him with food until he looks normal again, until he looks like a human and not such a…survivor.

He stares at me the moment Crawford opens the door and urges him inside. He says he's never seen an American before, his voice speaking the Japanese quickly, but softly, Crawford translating. I smile very slowly, attempting to keep it looking a little more natural than my naturally unnatural smile. I have no idea how it progresses, but I assume it's a good thing he hasn't run screaming in the other direction. I tell him in broken Japanese that I'm Irish, not American. He shakes his head and points at Schuldig, who just steps into the hall, his newly dyed hair dripping orange onto our new white towels. He says that all Irish are redheads and therefore Schuldig is Irish, not me.

I turn to Schuldig, but he only snorts and mutters something like 'kid logic' before going into the kitchen, probably to raid the cookie jar. He comes back out, an Oreo between his teeth as he snaps off the black layer and licks at the icing, his tongue pink and quick, like a cat's, his blue-gold eyes watching us in a similar feline fashion. The red hair sets off the blue. It's nice. He tells the boy in somewhat better Japanese that he's German and that I make a point of never lying. Then he tells him that he was very generous and decided to leave some hot water for him and to go get cleaned up.

"Supper will be ready in a half hour," I tell them all and watch the boy as he quickly searches for the hall bathroom. Once he is gone, the door closed behind him, we all look at one another with varying degrees of amusement. Excepting Crawford, his face is always impassible. I glance at Schuldig and he gives me an 'I'll tell you later' look. I shrug and go back to the kitchen. Schuldig goes to his room, avoiding any dinner assistant recruitment I might be planning.

The boy is quick in the shower, not more than six minutes and there is no way his scraggly hair is clean, but when he silently appears in the kitchen doorway, I don't send him back. I merely check his hands and ask him to set the table. Once he is finished setting out the chopsticks (he couldn't figure out the use of Western silverware, so I pointed to the chopsticks to make it easier for him), he sits down at the table and watches me as I move about the kitchen and stir the bubbling concoction in the pot on the stove. His expression is a little fearful, his little shoulders tense, but he says nothing. He probably understands the language barrier and knows I wouldn't be able to understand most of what he'd say.

The timer beeps and I call for Crawford and Schuldig. We eat in relative silence, Crawford telling the boy the basics of our job. The boy listens attentively, politely, but doesn't even hesitate to nod when Crawford asks him if he's ever killed before. Schuldig isn't surprised and neither is Crawford, but I am. He's so young…

The boy eats quietly and goes to look at his room while Schu and I wash the dishes, my arms deep in the soapy water and him setting the plates I hand him into the dishwasher.

"Who is this kid?" I ask in swift German, a little worried that the kid might somehow known enough English to know we're talking about him. Schuldig follows suit, his normally loud voice lowered to almost match mine. To be sure, being quiet is an impossibility for Schuldig, but he does try.

"He's from the same part of town we are, every city has one."

The street of painted whores, muggers, murders and gangs; the backwash of the civilized. I lived on streets like this in Dublin between stays in asylums and Schuldig grew up on them. Crawford is the only one of us and many Esset operatives who isn't from the bad part of town. Up until his teenage years (we assume) he had a relatively normal life. We don't know what happened after that. It's kind of like when Jesus disappears from the bible between his preteen years and his thirties. Only Crawford is twenty-six.

"He's one of the orphans," Schuldig continues, "His mother was a drug addict and used him to get her money, mostly dealing and carrying messages and the like. She's dead now. The father is unknown. The man his mother bought drugs from took him in but gave him out as a trick when he needed cash, guess he figured he could get better money that way. Everyone wants to fuck a freak, after all, and Nagi's anything but normal. He's always had his power, but it surged not long ago and he killed a customer. His pimp didn't want him back; sold him to us for virtually nothing."

I gaped at Schuldig, wondering if the unbelievable cruelty he had just described had just entered our house. Schuldig only smiled and poked me in the shoulder.

"He's a tough kid if he's made it this far. It only gets better from here."

I sneer and scrub at the pot in the sink, slopping soap suds and water on the floor in my fury. The grease comes off under my fingernails and I feel a light sweat break out on my brow.

Esset isn't better. We, Swartz, aren't better.

Schuldig gives me a stern look, pushing mental reminders of my own life before joining the team, about the asylum and the months sleeping on the streets of the city, of the anguish my early teenage years were. I pass him a plate and wipe my arms on a dishrag.

"This is better, Far," Schuldig states seriously. I study him for a moment, and then nod.

At least we aren't worse.

Nagi is extremely helpful around the house. I don't even have to ask him to do something because before I can open my mouth he's done it. He's smart, claims to be self-taught in basic math and reading, so when I start English lessons with him, he picks everything up at a speed I've never seen before. I give him book after book and he devours them all. I'm convinced he's a genius and when I tell Crawford so, the man only smirks enigmatically.

He is under strict orders not to use his power (simply for our safety, since he's untrained), but sometimes he uses it without even realizing. When he taps his foot as he reads, a pile of books or my teacup on the coffee table moves with it. He turns on the television without a remote and he sets the table without touching a single dish. It doesn't matter to me, he can't really hurt me, but I make sure he doesn't do anything around Crawford.

Schuldig and I have taken to him and we do our best to help him learn and keep him out of the way if anything dangerous is nearby. We have to take him to our meetings with Takatori, though I would rather we didn't. The fat, horrible man has a penchant for violence and a tendency to hit his underlings if there is a failure. He's smacked Schuldig around a little, but he's afraid of me. I won't let him near Nagi most of the time.

Crawford has been training the boy in leadership skills and Schu in fire arms. Nagi, as per usual, soaked everything up easily, so we decided to take him with us on a hit. It was Schuldig who made a bit of a mess, but this time Takatori decided to place the blame on Nagi. The moment he hits him I'm on him, all fists and rage. It takes both Crawford and Schuldig and another bodyguard to pry me off the sniveling bastard, who turned around and hit me with a golf club. I can feel my eye pop under the force of it like a grape, the blood running warm, thick and wet from the deflated lid, but I still desperately want to kill him.

Nagi is nursing his reddened cheek, his eyes huge and terrified as he watches me struggle. Most of the time I'm reserved, very quiet and calm and quite pleasant around the house, even on missions I don't really go nuts unless Crawford says I may, but this change in personality, this fuming, screaming, cursing version of me is something he has never seen before. Schuldig's voice echoes in my head even while Crawford is screaming 'Stand down!' in my ear. My remaining eye is watching Nagi watching me and the guilt I see in his face makes my anger disappear. I have the strange urge to give him a teddy bear and tell him to hug it until he feels better.

Ruth used to do that when my parents fought.

Takatori's voice sears the moment into nothing and I seethe at the sound of it.

"Freaks! Get that psycho out of my sight!" The three of them drag me outside, Nagi trailing behind almost meekly. I am still infuriated when they shove me into the car. Schuldig is in the back with me, peering at my damaged eye with a sickened expression. I muse about opening the window for him so he doesn't vomit on me.

"It's gone, Brad. The whole thing is just smashed," he explains as he digs around under the seat for a first aid kit and tears open a gauze pad, pressing and taping it to my face to still the bleeding. "We need to go to a hospital."

"It's doesn't hurt," I counter. I hate hospitals. I hate doctors and the smell and the medications. I have a bad history with hospitals, but who doesn't? Everyone who goes there is either sick or dying. If they aren't those, they're pregnant which might be the same as sick or injured which might be the same as dying.

"Of course it doesn't hurt, but you could bleed to death."

Schuldig has a flair for the melodramatic.

"You're pale enough already."

But at least he still has his sense of humor.

Crawford pulls into the emergency room entrance and lets Schuldig, Nagi and me out, telling us that he has to go back for damage control (no thanks to me). He tells Schuldig to call him when we're done and he'll come pick us up and take us home. Schuldig nods and shuffles us inside.

A pediatrician gives Nagi a packet of ice to press onto his face and I have to sit through a short examination and let the doctors prod and pry and eventually pull the remains of my eye out. The pieces are place on a stainless steel pan and I am staring at my bright iris and pupil from there. The sensation is disorienting and I almost ask them to bottle it in formaldehyde for me. I'm thinking Christmas presents for Ruth in Ireland…

They patch my eye with a similar theme as Schuldig; the white gauze the color of my skin against my face doesn't look all that unnatural. The tell me to replace the bandages once every day, to take some antibiotics and to come back in a week for a checkup. Then they send me on my way, so I meet up with Schuldig in the waiting room and steal his vending machine coffee. Schuldig shrugs and leads us outside to make the phone call.

I sit with Nagi on a smoking bench as Schuldig paces and waits for the call to pick up. I stare at the overflowing ashtray and push the butts into patterns.

"I'm sorry," Nagi says quietly, the English lazy on his lips. I turn to him. His face is so low I can barely see it. "It's my fault."

"No. This is Takatori's fault and I hope he burns in Hell. This is Schuldig's and my fault, but you haven't done anything."

"But.."

As Schuldig would say, 'kid logic'.

"Crawford could've stopped me, but he didn't. He felt the same. Schu too, but he'll never admit it. He's no right to hurt you. You're just a kid."

Nagi's pride flares at that and I smile.

"Maybe not in your head. You're smart, but you're still really young. You're still learning, mistakes happen. His hitting you might've damaged brain cells which will inhibit your learning and then he'd hit you more. Vicious circle, right?"

"He hits Schuldig all the time."

"Well, Schuldig kills more brain cells by himself, so what's a few more? Besides, he's an arsehole. He sometimes deserves it," I laugh. Schuldig glares at me, but says nothing. He looks away to talk into the phone. Crawford apparently picked up.

"One day Takatori will die and we'll be free of any and all hitting," I promise, "But there's no reason for us to put up with him now. Even with that knowledge. Even loonies like us have to have our pride."

Nagi just smiles. He looks almost like Valerie.

When we get home I replenish Nagi's ice supply and check the swelling on his face. It's red, but there is minimal bruising. Takatori doesn't know how to hurt someone without leaving marks. Crawford knows, I know. Nagi has potential to know. He has the kind of power that will crush someone from inside before they can get the breath to scream. He'll be beautiful in action some day.

I'm going to hate every minute of watching him then.

I stare at myself in the mirror and poke at the gauze, though I know I shouldn't. There is no pain, as expected, but it's so strange. My vision is suddenly so different I can barely hold myself upright. I'll never legally drive again. It won't stop me, but I'll be hell to explain if I ever got pulled over. I have a bit of a lead foot, so this might be more of a relief for the others…yeah right.

Tink is sitting on the ledge of the mirror and I remember that I've missed about a week's worth of medications. Did Crawford forget? Why did I forget? It's unlike me…

"You've fucked up pretty bad, pretty boy," she says, her voice like the goddamn bells she represents. I make a swipe at her with the back of my hand, the hand soap landing with a plastic crash on the tiled floor. She easily flies out of reach, then alights on the ledge again, looking at herself in the mirror and twirling so her green gauzy dress swishes. Her wings flit when she likes what she sees.

Vain creature, she is.

"What exactly have I fucked up besides the nice organization of my life?" I sneer, reaching up to open the cabinet and dig around for my pills. The orange bottles are shoved aside as I search for mine, my vision still askew. I can barely read anything.

Crawford's sleeping pills, still mostly full, Schuldig's migraine medications, almost empty, Ibuprofen tablets, aspirin in huge bottles, the first aid kits and syringes of my psycho sedatives, one needle missing from the pack (no doubt tucked into Crawford's jacket pocket). Where are my goddamn pills!

I throw them all to the floor and tear the shelving out of the wall, the sounds bringing Schuldig's attention. He's pounding on the door now, demanding entry. He senses my instability, can hear the echo of conversation in my head, and it worries him.

"They're on the top shelf," he shouts through the door.

Tink looks down at the mess I made and smiles, "Good luck finding it in that mess, you git."

"Shut your face, tart!" I snap and kneel down to search through the bottles, the labels swimming before my eyes…correction, eye. Schuldig is still pounding on the door and Tink is still laughing at me and I can feel tears well up in my eye sockets and wet my cheeks. My hands are shaking and I slap them over my ears, but Tink's voice pierces their meager protection. Schuldig has stopped pounding and is now picking the lock open, his curses in my head with my curses that come out of my mouth as I'm still looking for my medications.

I can't find them. They're gone. I'm going to be stuck with Tink for the rest of my life. I'm convinced that she'll be degrading me and laughing at me to the day I die now that I don't have my pills and I'm just about ready to smash the mirror and cut my throat when Schuldig crashes through the door and floors me into the mess. He hovers over me, breathing hard, eyes more concerned than I've seen in years, the last time I had a breakdown. He presses my face against his chest and holds me still, one hand picking out the bottle that was there the whole time, his eyes looking at Tink on the sink. She looks back at him innocently, as if she wasn't the cause of all this.

Schuldig lets me go long enough to pop open the bottle and drop a couple of blue pills into my hand, the tiny, round things shining up at me like flying saucers. I don't think I can swallow. I'm too frightened.

"I'll get you a glass of water," Schuldig says as he gets up. His shirt is fisted tightly in my one free hand and I refuse to let him go. Fuck the water, I can chew them up. I just don't want to be alone right now, not alone with Tink. He sighs and sits back down and motions for me to put the pills in my mouth and chew. I do.

"You can't keep doing this, Far," he says softly, pushing my hair back from my face. It's long enough to do that now. I should cut it soon.

He almost says she isn't real, but I glare at him. He knows as well as I that she damn well is real. She's real and the most terrifying thing on this earth. She's a part of me, I know it, something that broke loose when I was young, like a bit of my elbow, just off the tip of the bone that rode my bloodstream to my brain and stuck there. The pills somehow dissolve the bone and this, her. It only comes back when I stop taking them.

"You can't keep throwing fits when she shows up. She can't really hurt you, not really. She's all talk, is all. She just a stupid little farie."

Tink, of course, scoffs and shouts that she is not stupid. Both of us tell her to kindly shut up.

I know the pills are working and that I've been off them longer than I thought because my first reaction is tiredness. I slump back against Schuldig, between his chest and the toilet and my eyelid flutters, still crusty with salt, but too heavy to keep open right now. Schuldig helps me to my feet and guides me to the door.

Nagi is standing there, brought by the commotion. His eyes are, if possible, even larger than before, his pink mouth a little slack. I feel the hair on my neck and arms rise in response to the electro magnetic field he unconsciously built up in his fear. Schuldig senses it too and we stop, him holding me mostly upright.

"Nagi…It's okay now," I say slowly so I don't slur, "A little clockwork needed fixing, do you understand?" I point to my temple and nod, trying to induce him to do the same.

"Hai, Farfarello-kun," he whispers. His eyes switch to the bathroom floor, at the scattered pill bottles and medications and the first aid kit and the toothbrushes and four different kinds of toothpaste. They and the shelves are in the air, floating silently back into their original spots before the mirror door swings closed. He turns to me and nods.

His eyes are wary, worried. He doesn't want the first good thing in his pathetic life to go wrong and I have a feeling I came close to ruining it for him. I was ten seconds away from a trip back to the asylum for suicide watch. What kind of big brother does that to their family?

I smile tiredly at Nagi and Schuldig helps me to my room and into bed. The mattress is new here, scentless and somehow metallic. My pillow is nylon fluff and the coverlet is a second futon since we were too lazy to go out and buy a real comforter. I settle down in the soft, low-thread count sheets (which I have found are warmer and more easily worn in than higher quality sheets (and easier to replace when they wear out)) and I am instantly half-asleep. Schuldig is still sitting on my bed, his hand still on my shoulder, but he is talking to Nagi.

"Do you know anything about Schizophrenics?" he is asking. My mind is already swimming. Schuldig continues, so I assume Nagi shook his head.

"He hears things, sees things that aren't really there. They're real to him, but not to everyone else. These things he sees are very cruel to him, so he's on strong medications for them. He missed a few, but we caught him early, so he'll be fine in a few days. You'll see."

His voice is both assuring and its old snub self. I don't know how he manages it, but I like it. I can sense the boy relaxing, his power lessening into nothing again, the electromagnetic field growing smaller and smaller around his tiny frame.

"Back to normal?" the boy asks and I realize how very young he still is, however smart. A boy his age would want some normalcy, something strong and solid to place a foundation, any foundation on, to trust like he wants to trust us. It kills me that Esset will drive this instinct from him, or try its very best too. I want to be his best friend and his brother, I want to be his guardian angel.

Schuldig's hand pats my shoulder, telling me to go to sleep.

"Yeah," he lies smoothly, "Back to normal."

My last thought I am wondering when the boy's eleventh birthday will be.

Fin chapter 5

Please review

Author's Notes: Ah, bugger it, I'm bored as hell. I took a salt water bath this morning and it felt great. Of course, now my skin is peeling all over my body, but that's supposed to happen, salt water baths are there to exfoliate. Lord knows I needed it.

It didn't help my hair, though, what was once a nice, blinding red and has faded into a blinding orange-red. I'm hoping it lasts until Otukon in two (what, two? Really? Or is my math that bad?) weeks. After that my hair's going back to brown and I'm growing it out so I look like a girl again. I'm sick of people at work picking on me.

To My Readers…er…Reader…:

(bows) Thank you so much for your kind review. You've no idea how much it means to me to know someone likes my work.