"We don't know." The nurse spoke up first, hesitant. "I came in to check on her vitals since she was due to wake up. She woke up while I was looking over the machines, and suddenly went into that fit."

He gestured at Lia helplessly, indicating what he meant, and Train frowned.

"I yelled for help and hit the panic button, and my superiors came running." The nurse continued. "She continued to get more and more hysterical; that's when you came in."

"Can you describe what happened with her in more detail?" Eve spoke up, and Train glanced at her. The nurse looked at the little girl.

"It, I'm not sure…" The nurse began slowly as he thought back. "I think… well, she opened her eyes… and she took one look around before she started screaming bloody murder. Scared the living daylights out of me, to be honest."

"Did she close her eyes at that point?" Another one of the doctors suddenly piped up, and the nurse nodded slowly as he said, "Yes. Her eyes were closed when I hit the panic button."

"And she didn't open them after?" The doctor checked, and the nurse nodded again as he confirmed, "Yes."

The doctor turned to Train as he asked with a frown, "Why didn't you tell us she had a fear of hospital rooms?"

"… I didn't know." Train answered in a low voice, his gaze on the floor as he stared unseeingly at the ground.

"How could you not-?" Another of the doctors began incredulously, when his colleague shot him a look that quickly silenced him.

"… I haven't seen her for over two years." Train replied quietly. "And she didn't have this fear back then."

The doctors exchanged looks, as did Rinslet and Sven.

"It's probably some kind of trauma." The doctor who had first spoken to Train said grimly.

"It's not uncommon amongst people with PTSD and going by her injuries when she was brought in, I'm assuming she has seen some kind of fighting. She also appeared to have a fear of needles, going by her reaction when we tried to inject her with the morphine. Given this is the case… her injuries have reopened, but after we have closed them again I would recommend she be moved somewhere more private. Her own home, or…"

The doctor trailed off pointedly. Train nodded silently, and the doctors and the nurse started to leave to prepare for treating Lia again and to give Train and his friends some privacy.

The doctor who'd taken the lead hesitated in the doorway, pausing beside Sven as he seemed to dither, before he turned back to look at Train where the young man was still sitting on the edge of Lia's bed.

"I think you should know… we found signs of self-harm on her wrists. About two years old at my best estimate."

Train looked up, his face drawn, and he nodded. The doctor hesitated again.

"… Did you also not know that it appears she takes strong sleeping medication on a regular basis?" The doctor questioned, and Train's eyes glanced over sharply.

"We found traces in her blood and we know the signs."

Train's eyes lowered again, and the doctor explained, "Her morphine dosage also needs to be higher than average because she's developed resistance to sleeping aids."

Train nodded, and Sven thanked the doctor quietly. The doctor just nodded before he left them, and a heavy silence fell in the room.

"Train?" Sven began tentatively as they waited outside while the doctors treated Lia's wounds again. "You okay?"

Train sat in the chair with his elbows on his knees again, looking far more serious in the last twenty-four hours than Sven had seen the man in all the two years he had known him.

"I don't know." Train answered, and Sven looked up in surprise. He hadn't been expecting Train to respond.

"… Do you want to talk about it?" Sven asked tentatively, and Train didn't answer right away.

"Maybe."

Again, Sven was surprised when Train answered, the young man sitting back as he leant back in his chair, his head against the wall behind him.

"… Would you like me to leave?" Rinslet asked softly. It was a sincere question, born from genuine consideration – also rare from the thief-for-hire.

Train shook his head, a small, wry smile appearing on his face as he looked at Rinslet.

"Nah, you can stay and listen." He answered. "Besides, it might help to have another viewpoint to try figure this out – and especially another feminine mind."

"Eh?" Rinslet asked while Sven repeated, "Figure this out?"

Eve just watched silently as Train nodded, leaning back further to gaze up at the ceiling.

"Yeah…" He murmured, before he began.

"I met Jules… Julia, for the first time about two years after I started working as a Number. We were on an assignment together. It was only supposed to be for the one time, and I didn't really know her by the end of it. But I knew enough that she stayed in the periphery of my thoughts for quite a long time."

He smiled wryly again, recalling memories none of them knew about, before he continued.

"The next time I saw her was about a year later. I was assigned as her... mentor, I suppose you could say. Although warden was probably a better word for the task I was given."

Whatever relationship they had been expecting Train to reveal, that had not been it.

"Huh?!" Rinslet asked, while Sven frowned. The reactions Train had shown in the last day and his earlier interaction with the hysterical Lia were not those of a trainer and his student.

Eve hesitated, wondering if she should bring up something she knew, but Train was already moving on.

"But, that's not important."

Clearly, Train wasn't ready to discuss that yet.

Instead, he looked down at the ground again as he explained to them, "I saw Julia's skills firsthand – I've worked with her and trained with her. That kind of skill – and she was only seventeen when I first saw her - only comes after years of training. Of practice."

"I later found out Julia came to Chronos when she was twelve; so for her to attain the level she did at seventeen means she went through the most grueling training regiment Chronos had to offer. Most others have had experience from a young age and particularly Chronos' top are usually those born into the system and have trained their entire lives."

Rinslet blinked while Sven's face became thoughtful, as Train continued, "But even after all that, she never broke. The Julia I knew wasn't like who you've seen; she used to be really cheerful, or she was most of the time."

Rinslet and Sven stared at that.

'Cheerful? HER?' Rinslet thought, while Train went on speaking.

"She also had firm beliefs; it used to bug me a little, to be honest. Naïve, I called her. But even then…"

Train stared at his hands.

"She stayed true to who she was, which is more than can be said for most Chronos Erasers."

"Eraser?" Eve questioned, and Train nodded.

"Assassins." He explained.

"They are the more common Chronos hit men, higher ranked than the soldiers but not at the level of the Numbers. Julia became an Eraser when she was fifteen, although her specialty was in reconnaissance and stealth rather than assassination. That was mostly why I was training her when I met for the second time."

Eve nodded, while Train returned to his original point as he asked aloud, "So, what I don't understand is… what could break a girl who was so strong not even Chronos broke her?"

Sven pursed his lips.

"The doc just now did mention…" He began tentatively. But Train shook his head.

"That's not all. Lia was always extremely close with her older brother who would have been there for her if… if anything happened. And Lia's strong. She would've fought to recover; this… this isn't right. There's something more, I'm certain of it."

There was a moment's silence as Sven stewed on Train's words while Rinslet wondered if she should speak.

"Well, Train…" She finally blurted as she was unable to keep her confusion to herself. "She was calling for you earlier. Was it not, maybe, something to do with the… circumstances of how you left Chronos?"

Sven tensed while Eve's eyes flitted between Train and Rinslet warily, but Train took Rinslet's question well.

In fact, when he turned to look at the purple-haired woman, his gold eyes were filled with only thoughtfulness as he said, "And that's what I can't figure out."

Rinslet blinked while Train leant back again, looking up at the ceiling as he explained to them, "Julia isn't so weak that my leaving Chronos would hurt her to this extent. And what's more… she was the one who refused to come with me when I left."

"What?!" Sven gasped, his jaw actually dropping.

Rinslet also stood, stunned, while Eve tilted her head to the side in surprise and confusion as Train repeated, "She refused to leave with me; she betrayed me and informed on me to Chronos when I became a traitor to them. So."

He turned his gold eyes back on his friends as he asked them what he'd been asking himself ever since meeting No. X, Xiao Li.

"Why would the woman who sold me out when I turned from Chronos be the one who was broken when I left?"

There was a long silence, and Sven suggested hesitantly, "Maybe she felt betrayed… and her trauma comes from her feelings of betrayal?"

"Good idea." Train nodded. "But I don't think it's that simple either. Lia never liked Chronos, she only stayed because of her brother. I assumed she refused to leave with me for the same reason. Her fear of hospitals also doesn't make sense when I'd never even been inside one until I left Chronos… and there was something in the way that irritating No. X spoke. I get the feeling that he thinks I'm the one to blame. That somehow, I was the one who caused her change as she has."

"But you aren't to blame." Sven mused, and Train shrugged as he answered, "That's what I thought before. Now, it's harder to say."

He looked back up at the ceiling as he murmured, "I wonder… if I…"

Train broke off as the door to the operation room opened, and the doctor nodded to them that everything was fine. Sven watched silently, thoughtfully, as Train got up and walked over to speak with the doctor. Rinslet did the same as she wondered what Train had been about to say.

"How is she doing?" Rinslet asked.

Train looked up from where he had now taken up residence beside Lia's bed in Rinslet's upgraded hotel suite. The thief-for-hire had gallantly offered her place as a safer and better-furnished place for Lia to rest and recover.

"She's still sleeping." Train replied as he looked back at Lia, who was hooked up to an IV that was feeding her strong doses of morphine to keep her under. Rinslet also looked over, observing the way that – despite the extra dosage in the morphine – Lia was still shifting in her sleep, looking troubled as she twisted in the sheets.

"Has she said anything else?" Rinslet asked Train quietly.

The spiky-haired brunette didn't reply, and Rinslet didn't press any further.

They'd discovered shortly after moving Lia that – whenever the morphine wore off a little between replenishments – she tended to sleep talk. Most of it wasn't very clear, but the things that were… well…

"Train…" Lia whimpered, and Train's eyes filled with pain while Rinslet glanced over at the young man.

"You can stay here the night if you want." Rinslet said, reminding him of her offer, but Train shook his head.

"It's all right." Train replied as he finally got to his feet again. "Thanks, for looking out for her, Rins."

Rinslet nodded, watching as Train left with a troubled look on his face. She then turned back to the blue-haired woman lying on the bed, Rinslet's face also thoughtful and troubled.

She would never have guessed from her first impression of Lia that the young woman was carrying so many scars inside. She had been so cold and detached; and Rinslet had never in her wildest dreams thought that the icy persona was in place to hide a broken woman… or perhaps, keep the broken woman at bay even from Lia herself.

But what were they going to do when Lia inevitably woke up?

Rinslet thought that Train might be open to actually talking about what had happened if it was with Lia, but… Would Lia be willing to talk things out with Train, or would the woman's cold attitude return, leaving them no chance to even try fix whatever misunderstanding had been caused?

Was there even a misunderstanding? There was clearly one on Train's side that led him to believe Lia had betrayed him. But Lia's recent breakdowns had shown them a glimpse of something that seemed much deeper than just a misunderstood breakup. That, or else Lia had severely overreacted.

But Rinslet had seen a traumatized survivor of a hostage situation gone wrong. It had been just the once, but she would never forget the way the man's eyes had flitted around wildly as he saw haunted shadows that the rest of them couldn't. The man had later committed suicide, unable to cope with his own horrors. Somehow, Lia's reactions reminded Rinslet of that victim.

She sighed – this was all such a mess.

Not to mention there was still no news from Jenos and the others; and Rinslet had a strong suspicion that Lia was not going to take it very well when she woke up to find her brother missing.

Rinslet rubbed her head. Maybe she should hurry and sleep… hopefully, if nothing else, that would help the migraine that was starting to develop.

Meanwhile, Train stared unseeingly up at the night sky as he walked back to the room he, Sven, and Eve were staying in for the night at a much more modest motel across town from where Rinslet was staying. In his head, he could still hear what Lia had murmured as she tossed and turned in her fitful sleep.

"No… Stop... Let me go… Why… Saya… Train…"

She had shed another tear as she'd called for him again.

Train closed his eyes and heaved a sigh before he opened them again to stare up at the bright moon high in the sky. And if anyone had been around to see him, they would have thought it odd how uncannily the brunette man looked like a lost stray cat.

*A/N Song of the Day: Confession, from Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. The link is: /zpj5ye6DIjA