"Hey, Hotaru-are you asleep yet?"
"No, not yet…"
You can't sleep, can you?"
"No, not any more…"
Their old room, left untouched since Hotaru had left years ago, was dark as the pair of old friends laid on their futons. Kyo was on his back and Hotaru was on her side, her back to him. The Cat sat up and looked at the Silent Warrior who had her eyes partially closed.
"How bad do they get?" He asked softly, worried for his friend.
"So bad that I haven't slept for a week and a half." Hotaru admitted in a low voice. She pushed herself off the ground. "I'll be right back. I've got to get something to drink."
Hotaru left the room as Kyo looked at the water bottle next to her futon. Kazuma knew Hotaru's tricks from when the Silent Senshi was younger. She had made up a lot of excuses on why she couldn't go to sleep. The real reason-horrible nightmares that would scare her awake for days. The 'I need a drink' excuse was the first one she pulled with Kazuma. The Cat was a little surprised he had remembered that.
Kyo got up and followed her. "Hotaru-wait." She stopped halfway down the stairs with him at the top. "What happened after you left? What went on after Haruka took you from here when we were kids? Tell me, Hotaru. We're still two of a kind-two of the same kind. I'm still your best friend. I haven't forgotten you. Even after all this time, I still keep thinking that you were going to come around the next corner and I have to keep telling myself that you're gone. Now you're back. Tell me what's happened to you."
"It's my problem." The black haired senshi mumbled. "I'm not going to pull you into my mess."
"You've changed, Hotaru." The Cat's voice had a tone of being hurt. "What the hell happened to you while we were separated? What the hell did those guys make you see? What did they make you do? No, it's not that. No matter what you saw or what you did, it never could do this to you-not to someone as strong as you. It had to be something they did you. What did they do to you, Hotaru?"
She ran down the rest of the stairs with Kyo on her heels. She made it to the open veranda by the training hall and was going to run off into the night but Kyo caught her. He snatched her wrist and pulled her back to him, half slamming her against nearby post by her shoulders.
"What did they do to you?" He asked softly truly worried.
Hotaru looked away. "Would you believe I still don't have a place in the world?"
Oh, God…they didn't do what I think they did-did they? Kyo thought hearing the bitter tone she had used. "Go on, tell me."
"When Haruka took me away from you and Shishou, she and the other two took me back to my father. He had been so worried about me those two years I lived with you guys. I was finally back with him, Kyo. And they told me that if I wanted him to live, I couldn't see him anymore." Hotaru's eyes began to tear up. "They told me they'd kill him in front of me if I didn't obey the rules. The rules were nightmares. I wasn't allowed to acknowledge his existence ever again. I had to change my last name. I couldn't have friends outside the Senshi. I wasn't allowed to keep anything that connected me to the past. I had to devote all my power, life and soul to the preservation of the royal family.
"I agreed to spare his life. And I saw him as I went around town but I couldn't to him. He couldn't give me his love or anything." Hotaru continued with a sniff. "He was slowly dying and I couldn't stop it. I couldn't save him. I watched him waste away, Kyo. They made me stand by and watch him die. They had their families and constantly rubbed it in my face. And then when he was in the hospital, I wasn't allowed to see him even then. I wasn't even allowed to go to his funeral. I'm his only child, Kyo, and without me he died. After Mom, all he had was me and they took that away.
"And would you believe they still won't let me lay flowers on his grave? It's been years since he died and I can't pay the man who loved me the proper respects." She closed her eyes, a tear falling free. "I'm still being treated like I have the plague. They still act like I'm just a tool. I hate it, Kyo. I hate it all."
The Cat pulled her into his arms and held her against him as she cried into his shoulder. He was right. He had been afraid of that-they broke her heart and her spirit then they kept stomping on the pieces to keep her under their boot. Her tears soaked his shoulder as she clung to him in her despair.
Kyo tightened his arms around her to keep her close. "I won't let them get you anymore. If they try to take you away from here again, I'll stain my hands for you. I'll protect you the best I can. I promise, Hotaru."