Chapter Ten

Julie didn't come back that night. Kaoru waited for her for hours, but there was no sound, no indication of her return. He slipped into a restless sleep hours after her departure, dread and anxiety leaded in his stomach, still pondering her fate.

o0O0o

Very early the next morning, Kaoru awoke to screams.

He shot up in the bed, looking around wildly, heart pounding crazily in his chest. The sight that he saw shocked him to the core.

Julie had returned at some point in the night, and was now thrashing about on her makeshift cot of clothing and spare blankets. Her face was contorted in agony and there were tear tracks on her cheeks.

Kaoru, from his part, wasn't sure how to deal with it; he had no experience in things like this. He approached her cautiously, and finally took in the words she was screaming.

"No! Leave him alone! Please take me instead! Thomas! Thomas no!"

It continued like this for a long while, just repeating these words over and over in different variations.

Kaoru was still at a loss as to what to do here. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before.

It turned out that he didn't actually need to figure out what to do after all, because at that moment she sat up, with one final cry of "NO!", chest heaving and eyes wild.

Her breathing began to ease as she glanced around, the wild look receding from her eyes to be replaced by a mix of pain, guilt and sorrow.

Her hand crept to her chest, pulling the strong steel chain out and clutching the pendent tightly in her hand, eyes closed, breath still heaving slightly. A few stray tears drifted down her cheeks.

"Julie?" Kaoru asked cautiously, "Are you alright?"

Said girl stiffened and quickly wiped her eyes.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Her voice was curiously devoid of emotion.

Perhaps it was just from lack of sleep, but Kaoru felt sudden and rather inexplicable anger towards her for it.

"What's on that chain? he demanded, because frankly, they were in this together, and keeping secrets this large from one another was not going to help this relationship. They needed to work together, as a team, but they couldn't really do that when there was still so much that needed to be said? How was he supposed to trust her when she wouldn't let him in?

"That's none of your business," she snapped testily, obviously still shaken from her nightmare, whatever it had been about. Despite it all, Kaoru pressed on.

"I think it is actually. I want to know what you've been hiding from me. How am I supposed to trust you if you won't let me in?"

Julie glared at him, venom in her gaze. "Drop. It."

"No."

"I said DROP IT!" She had stood up by this point and looked about ready to take a swing at him. Her fists were clenched at her sides and she was practically shaking with anger. The silver chain glinted in the faint light of the bedside lamp that they left on at all times, drawing Kaoru's attention to the pendent that was now exposed for the world to see.

There were two rectangles with rounded edges, writing on both of them, shining silvery in the faint light. Kaoru was no expert, but he had seen American war movies.

Those were dog tags.

The method of identification used by the military.

"What are those?" Kaoru demanded, even though he already knew the answer, and dreaded it more than almost anything.

She looked down at her chest in confusion, which morphed into shock, then dismay.

"So you've seen them then." Her voice held a sort of resigned sadness, but seemed empty, lacking in any other emotion. She sighed.

"Guess there's no use in hiding them anymore."

Tugging the chain up over her head, she handed it to Kaoru without looking him in the eye.

He focused his attention upon observing the two pendants in more detail now that he could actually see them.

The chain was heavy and warm in his hand as Kaoru squinted at the tiny print, black on silver.

Julie Rutherford-Hopkins

Special Operations

4th Regiment, CAF

Kaoru flipped it over to see the CAF emblem shining back at him. He took the other tag in his hand and looked at the text written on its smooth surface.

100 376 824

Agent, Operation: Parvulus

"What's Operation: Parvulus?" Kaoru inquired, gaze still trained on the words. When no response was forthcoming, he looked up and was startled to see that Julie had vanished. The hole in the ceiling seemed to mock him in its infuriating inky blackness that he knew hid his roommate from him.

The darkness yielded nothing, however, no matter how long he stared at it.

And Kaoru was left standing alone in an empty room, holding the chain that bound a girl to her country in his hands.

o0O0o

She returned three hours later, calm, composed, in control, but the tell-tale eyes rimmed with red showed Kaoru at what price.

Holding out her hand, still not making eye contact, she silently asked for her tags back. He placed the chain in her small hands, and she pulled it over her head, tucking the pendants inside her shirt again.

Kaoru wondered why. Did she think that if she hid them he would forget? That the situation would just melt away?

Although, now that he had had some time to think about it, her being in the army certainly explained a couple of things. Like her ability to keep her head in every situation, and her fluency in so many languages. The way she moved so gracefully, her unusually large amounts of strength and the way she observed everything were also explained by this.

And the fact that she had remained silent all through that "experiment" could be credited to the counterintelligence training she had most probably gone through.

Julie was still standing there awkwardly, hands behind her back, head down, eyes focused on her feet, and Kaoru realised with a painful jolt in the region surrounding his heart that she was afraid. Afraid of how he was going to react. Afraid of him.

Deciding swiftly that they couldn't afford to go on like this, Kaoru stood from where he had been dozing on the bed, steeped forward and gently placed his hand under her chin, lifting it.

Her eyes remained downcast, and Kaoru felt a surge of anger that was almost immediately vanquished by guilt. He had done this to her. Him.

Drawing on all of his word skills from his time as a host, and making sure to keep his voice gentle, Kaoru said, "I'm sorry for pressing you about this. You had a right to privacy, and I violated it. For that I cry your pardon. But know this; I'm not angry with you, and whenever you're ready to talk I'll be there to listen. I promise."

She looked up at him there, something indecisive in her eyes, which was quickly resolved upon meeting his gaze. Then she buried her face in his chest, arms twining around his waist.

Kaoru was unsure how to react to this for a moment, then instinct seemed to take over and he wrapped his arms around her, hiding his face in her hair, breathing in the scent of her.

It would have been the perfect moment, except that William chose that minute to enter the room and squeal in delight.

"Oh, you two are just too adorable!" he gushed.

Julie groaned, and burrowed her face deeper into Kaoru's chest, this time from embarrassment, not emotion.

"Anyways," William continued in his normal tone, "I brought you your scripts. I expect you to have the gist of it by Thursday."

He then sauntered out the door, leaving Kaoru with two manila envelopes in his hand.

END!

(One quick note... Parvulus meanschild in Latin.)