The Vesalius enjoyed peace for the next few days.

Yzak knew he probably should have welcomed it. Peace meant no fighting, which meant no casualties. No more losses. But idle time made it that much easier for his demons to appear, and he could sense himself slowly slipping away. He desperately needed an anchor, a distraction, to keep him away from his own guilt. Ironically, it was the cause of his troubles that now seemed to give him shelter.

He was training in the shooting range in a desperate attempt to occupy himself. He hadn't been able to sleep much since the night he saw Shiho cry. He knew that if he were thrown into battle at that moment, he most definitely would not survive. Even at that moment, his vision was spinning and his head was about to split open. But neither could he bring himself to face his nightmares.

His aim stayed perfect. He almost wanted to laugh at how well the ZAFT had trained him to be a killer.

A killer, that's what he was. Not a soldier, not a hero. He was a murderer, trying to wipe the blood on his hands by killing another. There was no such thing as glory in the battlefield. There was only death, and everyone was guilty.

Another pair of boots clunked against the hard floor, and he realized Shiho had walked in.

"Joule, you look like hell."

He scowled, well aware of the fact. He loaded his gun again and emptied a round.

"Fuck off, Hahnenfuss."

Shiho walked to the next booth, then looked back. The vulnerable girl he'd seen in the back deck was gone, and the able, cold soldier was back. Before, Yzak would have cursed at himself for betraying any sign of weakness to her; now, he simply concluded that they were even. If he'd met Shiho Hahnenfuss for the first time that night, then she was meeting Yzak Joule today.

Yzak Joule, the broken.

"Are you sure you should be handling a gun in your state you're in? I swear, I'm not going up to Creuset saying that you shot yourself because you couldn't fucking tell the target from your head."

He almost started to laugh.

"If I died, I'd be able to sleep in peace, wouldn't I?"

Shiho did not reply instantly, but shot at her target. Bull's-eye. Apparently she was as good at target practice as she was piloting a mobile suit.

"When?"

Yzak lowered his gun and faced her.

"When what?"

"Your scar."

He subconsciously raised his arm and traced the huge gash across his face. The battle wound from the Strike. What used to be a constant reminder of his humiliation and his determination to shoot down that damned MS. Even that no longer seemed to be enough to anchor him.

"Back in February."

"Does it still hurt?"

"…No."

She emptied her round. Her aim was impeccable, but the moment she stopped shooting her hands began to shake.

"How did it feel?"

"The scar?"

Shiho shook her head, and reloaded her gun with still shaking hands.

"When your team was plucked off one by one."

Yzak froze. Of course. Trust her to bring something like that up when he was near delirious, with a gun in his hand. He could not decide if he wanted to shoot her so she'd shut up, or if he wanted to shoot himself so he could stop listening. He replied after a moment of thought.

"I didn't even notice."

And he was not lying. Back when he was still in the process of losing, he'd been so consumed by rage that he did not realize what it meant to lose his comrades.

"I woke up one morning, and realized everything was gone."

They both emptied another round.

"Who did you lose?"

Yzak decided that it was his turn to question. Shiho slowly lowered her gun and left it on the counter. She laid her hands flat across the surface as if to steady herself, but they were shaking harder than ever.

"My friend."

Instinct told him she was lying. Whoever she'd lost was more than a friend. But he didn't pry; perhaps he didn't want to know. Logic and sleep deprivation did not get along, especially not in his brain.

"How?"

"It was our first real combat. He was more experienced than I was, so he took the offensive and I stayed with the ship. But it was suicide, and he knew that… He lasted 12 minutes and 37 seconds before they blew up his GINN."

He wanted comfort her somehow, but he had no idea what to do. It had been such a long time since he felt anything other than anger or sorrow. It was almost as though he was learning to be human all over again.

"But no one remembers people like him. He was all I had, Joule. No family, no real friends, just him. And it doesn't even fucking matter."

Shiho turned to him, and he saw the vulnerable girl behind her eyes again.

"But people know about the Creuset team, and they know about the ones you lost. Tell me, Joule, what makes them all so goddamned special."

He looked down to his palms, and saw them covered in blood again.

"Nothing. Nothing at all, Hahnenfuss. They were normal people. Normal, and scared."

A killer's hands.

"Just like you and me."

That night, for the first time in a very long time, the voices left him alone in his sleep.

A/N: Everybody knows about the Creuset team because a) it was the so-called "elite" team that everybody in ZAFT knew about, and b) Yzak, Athrun, Dearka and Nicol were all sons of Supreme Council members. This might have been another reason why Shiho was so aggravated by Yzak...