A/N: New installment. Please enjoy! Same disclaimer as before…Ionly own my OOC's all others belong to Jyu-Oh-Sei's creator! :D

Chapter 7

"What! What happened?" I was shocked to hear what Chen had told me had happened while we were gone. Even more surprised still to find out that she didn't know what had caused it.

"Calm down Zagi. Getting excitable isn't going to help anyone, especially not Rem." Thor scolded me. I was not happy with him. He had beaten me in a friendly little wager between us on the hunt. I had to physically restrain myself from grimacing at his comment.

"Who is with her now?" Thor asked Chen.

"Tiz…After Rem's breakdown she hasn't left her side." Chen looked haunted as she was standing in front of us. Thor looked at me. He had noticed it too. Chen looked into my face and then Thor's and a tear leaked out of her eye.

"Chen…Wha-" Thor hugged her as she started to cry.

"I don't know what she's been through, but the screams of pain and sheer terror that she belted out that day scare me. I've been through hell on this planet but…that…it doesn't even feel like a ripple in the amount of tears, blood, and sweat she's gone through." Chen choked out in gasps. Thor's eyes bored holes into me. We had the same questions that we wanted answered.

We got all the information we could from Chen about what had happened, and we sent her off to take care of the banquet that was to be happening in matter of weeks. I had only seen Chen cry twice. Once, when I had killed the father of her one child, Yuki, which, I suspect, is why she still hates me a little. Second, when Thor had finally dragged both me, and Tiz's dead body, up from the bottoms of the muses, deep in the planet she howled in rage over the loss of her closest friend.

Thor and I walked to Rem's room to find a Yui standing outside the door staring into nothingness. Chen had told us that Yui was the one, that day, who had held Rem so she didn't break on us all. I coughed to get Yui's attention as Thor and I came to a stop beside him. He startled into readiness immediately.

"Ah…Thor Sir…Zagi…" He said while jumping and moving back from the door. He wasn't acting like himself. Usually he would pick at me or be at least a little jovial.

"Yui…Chen told us- Is she alright?" Thor finally asked after hesitating. Yui looked between us and then looked at the ground.

"I didn't know what to do Thor. She just started breathing all crazy and then…"Yui looked up at us with tears shining in his eyes but not falling, "She started screaming and yelling something about a pit…"

'A pit?' I thought to myself as I looked to Thor. 'Why a pit?'

"And when Chen came running in to see what was the matter…she…I guess it startled her but…Rem chucked my sword at the women." Yui wheezed.

"If I hadn't grabbed her arm at the last second it would have hit one of them in the arm or worse…" Yui's voice cracked. I was guessing he was reliving that moment over and over again, to see what had made Rem slip in to a rage. I walked over and clapped Yui on the shoulder and made him look me in the eyes.

"Thank you for being there for her when we couldn't. Do you think she's up for a visit?" I asked him since, according to Chen, he was pretty much the only person she would allow in the room. The look I got was a mix of anger and fear. I understood the fear, but the anger was a little surprising to me. He looked back down at his feet and nodded to us.

"I am sure she would love company. She's getting cabin fever from not being able to move because of her injuries."

"She still not allowed to move yet?" Thor questioned. We had been under the impression that her wounds would be healed by the time the hunt was over.

"No. The doctor is still worried about one of her ribs; especially since her episode, she opened a lot of her wounds." Yui reported.

"Ah, alright, we shall tread lightly then. Zagi and I do not wish to upset her any further." Apparently, Thor had caught Yui's anger as well. Good. It wasn't just me sensing it then.

XXXXX

"Rem-Rem are you sure that you don't want me to stay?"Tiz asked me in a small voice. She had just brought me my dinner with Yui, who unexpectedly left after a short talk, saying that he had to go and report somewhere. I looked at the little girl who was practically shaking with her desire to attach herself to my hip after what had happened. I couldn't say no to her.

"No, I take it back, you can stay here tonight if you want to, but you make sure someone knows other than me. I don't want you getting in trouble. Okay?" I told her. Her face lit up at my response. I had given them all a scare I guess. Hell, I had scared myself with that memory. I thought that I had finally buried all of those damned things.

There was a knock on the door and Tiz and I looked over. No one ever knocked except for Chen and I really wasn't up to seeing her yet. I knew I had to apologize to her. From what Yui had told me, I had thrown his sword and if he hadn't grabbed my hand at the last moment, I would have hurt someone. The door opened a bit to reveal two of our least expected guests. Zagi and Thor poked their heads in just enough to see us.

"May we come in?" Thor asked and an excited Tiz practically flew across the room and in to his outstretched arms. I smiled and laughed.

"Yes. Come on in. But since when do you knock Zagi?" I poked at him. He smiled at me and threw a thumb in Thor's direction.

"He knocked, not me." he smiled and came over to the bed with Thor and Tiz in tow. Tiz was in Thor's arms clinging to his neck like it was a life raft.

"How are you feeling?" Thor tentatively broached the subject of my tantrum. I blushed slightly. I was not proud of the fact that I had a panic attack the other day.

"I'm fine now. Sorry to worry everyone." I said as I smiled. It didn't quite reach my eyes though. My heart wasn't into smiling right now. Not all of the memories where completely buried. It was making it a very hard day.

"You don't have to put on an act you know." Zagi remarked as he sat in the chair at my bedside and got comfortable. Thor took up root leaning against the post at the foot of my bed. I was a little upset at his comment but Zagi was right I was putting on a bit of an air. I wasn't ready to talk about anything to anybody, so I was pointedly acting as if nothing major had happened. I sighed and shook my head.

"You can talk to us. We're actually okay listeners." Thor motioned to Zagi and to himself as well.

"I…Thanks, but there isn't anything to tell."

"You're that scared of whatever happened?" Zagi snickered at me. I think he was just trying to get me to talk by poking at my pride a little. Normally that probably would have worked; but when it came to memories of my training and combat…it was a whole other ball park. I avoided my memories and locked them in the deepest, blackest pit in my mind that I could find.

So all I could do was smile and nod at him. I sighed. This day was just going to hurt. It didn't look like Zagi and Thor were going to let this go.

"Yeah, I am."

"Rem….what happened…please talk to us. We both know what colony life was like at one time or another." Thor pleaded with me. His comment hit a nerve and I lost my cool for the smallest of moments as I replied to him.

"No. No, you don't know what it was like. Neither of you lived on Genesis and neither of you is a woman." Thor and Zagi stared at me and waited for me to continue. I didn't want to. I didn't want to open my black box of memoires that I had carefully locked and thrown away.

"Was Genesis that bad?" Zagi asked.

"We know it's a warrior colony; but not much other than that. Was it your training or something else?" Thor continued on Zagi's question. The black box was leaking little memories at the mentions of training. And I was swimming, treading water as fast as I could to stay ahead of whatever they would force out of that box from this one little talk. I shut my eyes and covered my face with my hands to try and fight them more.

"Get out." I whimpered. I sounded pathetic, but with each question I felt like I was suffocating. The air was getting hotter. It was stifling. I wanted them to stop. I wanted it all to stop.

"What…" Zagi gaped at me.

"Get out." I said a little louder and my eyes felt hot as another memory of training brushed my conciseness.

"But…Rem, come on we are here for you. Just let us-" Thor was trying to soothe me.

"GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!" I screamed and Zagi got up quickly dragging Thor and Tiz behind him. Thor was going to say something again but Zagi pulled him faster to the door before he could get it out.

When they were finally out of the room I could breathe again but I felt terrible. I laid down trying hard not to get sucked back in to anymore memoires. I curled in to a ball and covered my head with the blanket. I was trying to shut out the world but nothing was going the way I wanted today.

I started to cry in my weakness.

XXXXX

"Zagi, why did you pull us out of there?" Thor yelled at me.

"Listen and you will figure it out, idiot." I yelled back at him. Thor shut up and listened through the closed wooden door we had just come through. It was faint but you could hear Rem crying softly. Thor's face fell. We were worried but we didn't want to hurt her further. I had nearly slapped myself for the questions that had come out of my mouth while we were in there. I sighed heavily.

"If we had stayed in there any longer we would have caused another panic attack for her." I told him matter of factly. I had noticed that she was breathing heavy and had gotten up. I cursed my idiocy for pushing her.

"All I want is for her to feel safe enough to relay on us." Thor commented as he leaned against the wall.

"Hate to break it to you Thor, but your worst memories will come to the surface, no matter how hard you've buried them, when you feel the safest." I sighed. Thor looked at me and thought about what I'd said for a minute and then nodded.

"Yeah that's true. It was only after I had started to feel safe here that I could try and sort out my grief over Rei. I guess I'd just never thought about the timing." Thor contemplated out loud as he talked about his grief of his lost brother.

Later that night

There was a knock on my door. After my little hissy fit this afternoon I figured I wouldn't get anymore guests. But a little bundle of black hair popped through the door as it creaked open half way. Tiz's grey eyes were red and puffy, surely from crying all day. The poor thing, I had made her worry. I heaved a sigh and sat up and patted the bed when she didn't say anything to me.

"Come here you." Tiz got up on the bed, but kept a tiny amount of distance between us. I wasn't sure why either; other than, having screamed at everyone to get out of my room earlier, of course. Maybe she still wasn't sure of her welcome. I put my right arm around her shoulders to comfort her and leaned on her, placing my head on top of hers.

"I just came by to see if you wanted to go for a walk. You haven't gone out of the room right? The nights are going to be here soon and I thought you might want to see one of the last sunny day views we have at the observation deck." Tiz asked with tears in her eyes. I smiled, happy that this little girl cared about a broken shell of a person like me.

"Yes, that would be very nice Tiz. Can you show me to the observation deck?"

"Mmm" she grinned up at me and nodded happily.

When we got up to the deck it was an amazing view to behold. From what Tiz was telling me and what I could see for myself, the gigantic stocks that shot out in to the sky and canopied in front of the Ochre Fortress were called Muses.

I thought back to what Thor had told me on my first few days here and remembered that he had told me that Muses were their source of water, and also once the canopies fell from them the month of joining would start. And then the nights would begin. 181 days of solid night and cold weather. From the sun shining down now, and the wonderful breeze that was blowing, it was a hard thing to imagine that soon it would all be buried under a dark sky and snow.

"It's beautiful."

"Yeah. It's always the prettiest right before the nights come."

"That's the way the world works hun." I chuckled feeling much, much better at the sight of the sky. I say down on the stone balcony that over looked the Muses and soaked in the sun. I was starting to ache from not being active these last few weeks. I would soon need to regain the muscle that I had lost while I had been recuperating. Tiz sat down in front of me and we watched the sun and the Muses sway till Zagi found us on the deck.

"What are you two doing out here?" Zagi asked me looking down at a very asleep Tiz in my lap.

"We were just watching the Muses." I replied.

"Yeah they are a sight, huh?" Zagi said looking out in the distance. It took him only a minute and then he looked back at me and smiled.

"What?"

"Nothin'. Come on let's get you back to your room it's late; and as you can tell its Tiz's bed time. That's who I was looking for by the way. Thor was going crazy looking for her. She disappeared after dinner." He chuckled to me as he scooped her into his arms and held a hand out to me.

"Ah. So how did you know to look here?"

"It's her favorite spot other than by Thor's side. Oh yeah, and your side as well, now. Although, I think she spends more time with you now." He laughed lightly so as not to wake her up.

"You went to my room first didn't you?" I nudged him with my elbow.

"Yeah, I did." And somehow the look I received as he told me that made me look away. He was being way too intense for just a dull comment as all that. I threaded my arm around his as we hobbled at my pace back to my room.

A/N: Cliffhagger! LOL more to come maybe some steamy scene next :p tune in next time!