Julius Chou was this close to banging his head against a wall out of sheer frustration. But, since he wasn't in the mood for a concussion today, he settled for pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, trying to fight off the tension headache he could just feel creeping up on his temples. Why could no one agree on what to do about the border and rim planets?

They were a stubborn bunch, true, but he was confident that they would see reason eventually, if they saw they couldn't win. Julius wanted to stop this war as quickly as possible before even more people got hurt, but his leaders, especially those in the military, were aliment to keep trying to open peace talks with the opposing side. Around and around the argument went in his government, neither side coming to an agreement, with more and more soldiers losing their lives in the meantime. Julius was becoming increasingly frustrated with the whole situation.

A gentle touch to his arm made him look to his left where the personification of Ariel sat. "Would you like to take a break?" she asked quietly.

Julius looked from her to the stage down below the balcony where the nation and planet sat, where one of the generals was giving an incredibly boring and long-winded speech about peace and understanding and universal harmony and so on and so forth. And it didn't look like he would be wrapping up his oration any time soon.

"Gladly, but I think it'll be awhile," he answered finally, glancing back at Joanna. She gave a small smile.

"Not as long as you might think," she replied, pointing down to where her president and others of the cabinet sat, seeming as bored and antsy as Julius was feeling. "I will give it… hm, five minutes more, at the most." Sure enough, four minutes later, the president called for a break. Julius couldn't quite mask his sigh of relief, but Joanna would have caught it anyway, so he didn't mind as much as he would have if almost anyone else had witnessed his slight slip of decorum. She was a sharp one, she was. Speaking of which…

"Julius, is there… something wrong?" she asked, her large, liquid brown eyes radiating gentle concern.

"I'm fine," he replied automatically, giving her a tight smile. "I'm just a bit… distracted now, that's all. I've got a lot on my mind." She was plainly not convinced, but decided to not press the matter, for which he was grateful.

"I think I'll go stretch my legs for a bit," he remarked after a moment of silence. As he rose to his feet, Joanna mirrored his actions. She raised an eyebrow at him, and he sighed, but gave her a small, but genuine smile this time.

"I'll be back in about ten minutes; you don't need to keep an eye on me. I'll be fine. Promise." She looked like she might argue the point, but nodded and sat back down.

Julius gave her a nod in return, slipped out of the booth they were sitting in, and started walking down the hall, glad to finally have the chance to be alone for a couple minutes. Joanna was one of the sweetest girls he'd ever met, and there was almost no one he'd rather have at his side in a fight, but goodness, could she hover like no one else when she got into 'protective mode' as some of the younger personifications called it. She was almost as bad as Akiko sometimes.

A small, wry smirk found its way onto his face. No one was as bad as Sihnon's personification when it came to hovering. The smirk disappeared, and he sighed. He wished that she and Winston could be here today, if only to keep him company, but no. They deserved their day off, far from this war, far from the fighting.

Far from you, that pesky, condescending voice whispered in the back of his mind. Wrenching his thoughts away from that track, Julius instead focused on the upcoming vote that would decide whether or not to focus more manpower and money into the war. So far, the fighting had escalated, yes, but it was mostly skirmishes and small battles here and there. Nothing very major, for which Julius was profoundly grateful. Still, it was becoming clear to everyone that the Independents would not go down without one hell of a fight, and it was becoming more expensive than some of his bosses had planned to continue it. Some of them were willing to reevaluate their positions, but others were still pushing for a forced annexation. It would all be decided toda-

"-lius? … Wa… Please… up! Julius!" Julius' eyes fluttered open (funny, he didn't remember closing them), and he winced at the bright glare of the lights overhead, his eyes shutting again for a moment before he forced them open again. Joanna was leaning over him, worry written all over her chocolate brown face. Faces. Face... Why couldn't his eyes focus? And wait… why in the 'verse was he on the floor? Joanna looked remarkably relieved when she saw him try to focus on her face.

"Oh, thank God," she murmured, placing a gentle hand on his forehead. Louder, she said, "Julius, what happened? Are you alright?"

"Erg," was his eloquent response. He was becoming increasingly aware of a sharp pounding in his skull, and acute ache in his chest. What was going on? Why was he on the floor? And why couldn't he fo-His eyes suddenly widened, despite the harsh bright light, and with great effort he forced out, "Jo, 'm gonna…"

Understanding dawned in her eyes, and she turned him so that he was on his side, just as he vomited the contents of his stomach all over the carpeted floor. Julius was dimly aware of Joanna soothingly rubbing his back and speaking softly to him, but it was pretty much drowned out by the horrible ache in his head and his stomach forcibly rebelling against him. Everything was doing that lately, it seemed.

When nothing else would come up, the Alliance just lay there for a moment, panting, trying to catch his breath. He felt weaker than he had since Shadow had shot him, perhaps ever. It was not a pleasant feeling, to say the least. God, his head killed. What had happened? He was dimly aware of something warm and wet trickling down the left side of his face, and he weakly reached up and wiped it away, freezing when he saw red covering his fingers. A chill ran down his spine.

"Don't touch it, Julius," Joanna ordered, shifting to his other side so she could see him better. "It looks like someone attacked you. What do you remember?"

"Wha' happened?" he slurred, and then stopped in consternation as he heard how garbled his words were. What was wrong with him?

"Idon't know. I was hoping you could tell me." Apparently satisfied that he wasn't going to start puking again, Joanna eased a hand underneath her nation's head and gently turned him so he was lying flat on his back again. "When you didn't come back when you said you would, I went looking for you. I found you just lying here, like this. It looked like someone clubbed you on the head. You almost certainly have a concussion."

I hate irony, Julius thought as his dazed mind tried to process the situation. It was more difficult than it should have been. Why in the seven Hells wouldn't the room stop spinning? It was making him ill again, and he closed his eyes to ward off the nausea.

A sudden sharp, stabbing pain in his chest made him gasp and lurch halfway upright, his hands instinctively going to his heart. He couldn't suppress a soft moan as the pain didn't lessen. If anything, it grew stronger. And moving didn't do anything for his splitting headache either.

"Don't move, Julius, you'll only make it worse!" Julius knew better than to argue with that tone of voice, and he meekly let the female planet carefully push him back down again and undo his shirt. He moaned again as the fabric moved over his chest as Joanna pushed it aside, tears pricking his eyelids. It just hurt so much. Why was this happening? What was going on? Why did it hurt this badly? A soft gasp made him crack open one eye.

"What is it?" he asked softly, glancing down at his chest, half afraid of what he might see. The skin in about a four inch diameter over his heart was blackened and bloody, as if someone had been hacking at it with reckless abandon with a red-hot knife and A wide, vertical gash had drawn itself over his breastbone. Both wounds were profusely leaking blood and the horrible ache in his heart told Julius that the damage went deeper than what he could see on the surface.

And then he knew. Suddenly, Julius knew. Something had happened to Londinium and Sihnon. He didn't know how he knew, he just knew, knew it with every fiber of his being. Terror shot through his heart, along with another jolt of pain, and he knew this fear wasn't for him. Winston. Akiko. No. No, this couldn't be happening!

With great effort, Julius reached up and gripped Ariel's shoulder, squeezing it hard to try to keep himself awake, trying to fight the blackness encroaching on the edges of his vision. She winced, but endured the pain stoically, knowing he didn't mean to hurt her, he was just panicked and suffering, trying to keep from going under again. She reached up and took his hand in hers, biting her lip slightly at the blood that was smeared all over it and her shirt, and he pressed it tightly.

"'Kiko…" he ground out between clenched teeth, his other hand gripping the carpet so hard it was actually starting to rip. "Winston… They're hurt. They're-" he broke off with a short, sharp, gasp of agony before he was able to continue. The blood dripping steadily from his temple became a stream, rather than a trickle. "Help them… p-please, Joanna." The uncharacteristic desperation in Julius' voice convinced her more than anything that something was wrong, terribly wrong, and she nodded solemnly, tenderly brushing some of the nation's golden hair off of his sweaty forehead.

"I promise," she replied. And with that, Julius finally fell unconscious, unable to resist any longer. As the grip on her hand went slack, Joanna gently laid Julius' arm down next to his still form and took out her holophone. It was time to make a few calls.

Lizzie continued her fruitless efforts to try to awaken Friend for another couple minutes. Her little mind couldn't quite understand what all was happening, but Friend wasn't supposed to be this way, he wasn't supposed to be lying so still and cold. His warm redlife all spilled over the ground smelled wrong, bad, wrong, it wasn't right! She stopped pawing and bumping at Friend's arm and started to nuzzle his shoulder, mewling piteously. Friend needed Others to come stop the redlife from flowing out of him, where were Others?

Friend's adopted litter mate, She-who-is-neat, was hurting, too. The thick, hot redlife gushing from her belly, through her green fake skin, was almost as disconcerting as Friend's. Lizzie padded over to her and licked salty water from her cheek, trying to be comforting. They both needed help fast, she could sense it. But who?

The golden, stately image of He-who-leads immediately came to mind. He was also their adopted litter mate, he loved them, surely he would help! Lizzie then mewed sadly as she remembered that He-who-leads wasn't Here. There was no way to tell him Friend and She-who-is-neat were hurting, even if He-who-leads would gladly help if he knew. Who else might help them, then?

Wait… Sister-who-dances! Brother-who-dreams! She-who-builds! They were Here, they would help, they would know what to do! Yes, yes, that was the answer!

The tiny cat bounded back to Friend's side, nuzzled his cheek in farewell, and then dashed off through the crowd of Humans. Now that she knew what to do, nothing could stop her. She would find the three younger Others if it was the last thing she did!

AN:

I know it's short, I'm sorry! The next bit will be longer, promise. I just thought this would be a good place to stop.

Next time: we see what the moons have been up to, and America and China show up.