A/N
I've been on a Korean craze lately and one of the guys I feel would be a good actor to play a real life Zero is Korean actor-singer TOP from the Korean group BigBang. Those eyes and jawline are amazing... I'm a sucker for sexy eyes and sharp jaws. If anyone has the patience/time/curiosity to Google him, please ignore the occasional terrible hair and the clothes. Anyway, it's just my opinion and if anyone has a different opinion I would love to know =) just leave it in the reviews section while you're reviewing!

On with the story. This entire chapter is in Yuki's POV, while she's still in the hospital.

I stared up at the ceiling, trying to go back to sleep. But I was failing miserably. Since when have I been so lazy? Since when did I start to wake up with this sinking, hopeless feeling? I know perfectly well when. I remember every single detail, every single word and touch, every single smile and each drop of blood.

I look to my right, imagining your head of silver hair in my face, your strong arms wrapped around my waist, your heartbeat comforting me. Stories tell of heated, lustful passion. Our story, just like our relationship, is so much more. Our passionate nights were hazy with lust and desperation, yet making it astonishingly clear, at least to me, the purity of our love. Our mornings were just as passionate, but tinged with the sweetness of bliss and peace and laced with the bitterness of knowing what was coming.

Our morning-afters didn't start this perfectly.

I remember the first time I looked into your eyes.
It was our first meeting, remember? The first time you laid your eyes on me. I had been watching you for a while then, watching your every move. But, I never had a chance to look into those beautiful eyes of yours. Your eyes enchanted me and still do, every single time I look into them. Your eyes were full of fire, so angry with vampires, so angry with yourself, so angry with the world, so angry with fate. Yet, they were cold at the same time. To quote you, you were "dead to the world, living just to breathe."

It was just a quick glance – or glare – whichever you prefer. You had yelled at me for following you and I had answered you back. But in that brief split second exchange, I was already enamoured by your eyes. There was a tinge of pain, a touch of sadness. Your eyes were like a window to your soul, except that those windows had been boarded up and I had been looking through the cracks. And the whirlpool of emotions in your eyes pulled me into this mess.

I remember the first time I touched you.
Your voice, uttering those heart-wrenching words with such painful desperation, awoke something in me I didn't know I possessed: the urgency to protect someone I loved.

"Don't touch me," you had uttered. I couldn't do what you asked. I wouldn't.

"Don't touch me… Let go… Let go now… I'll kill you… I swear I will…. Don't you dare touch me. Fuck off bitch…" you murmured. But I didn't let go. You were so cold, both inside and out. Your handsome face was marred by such terrible pain, your voice heartbreakingly desperate mumbling things that sounded like pleas and threats, your body completely rigid but trembling violently. I had to protect you.

Then, you started thrashing. You always seemed like a statue, a man who could not be moved, a man whom I had only seen put on 2 different masks: ruthlessness when you were hunting and killing; and indifference for every other time. This you I was looking at, this you without those masks you put on, this was the real you. A man torn down by the harsh winds of fate, broken to the core.

I shushed you, trying to hold you down as you thrashed against your nightmare, fighting off the predator in your dreams. For the first time, I wanted to protect someone. I wanted to protect you. You're so strong on the outside, yet so terribly fragile on the inside. I wanted to cure you from your pain. I wanted to kiss it all away. You were trembling violently, your jaw clenched so tightly.

I lied to myself, telling myself that getting closer to you was to help Kaname achieve his goal. But honestly, it was all for me. I just wanted to be near you. I just wanted to touch you. I just want to see your smile. I want you to be happy. I want to be your happiness.

I threw myself onto you, trying to hold back my tears. These feelings rushing through me were alien to me. All my life, I've been protected. Now, I want to protect you. All my life, I've been loved. Now, I want to love you. Because all your life, you've been thrust out to the wild to fend for yourself. Because all your life, you've been alone. Let me in. Let me into your life.

"Sshhh… I'm here. It's okay. I'll always be here. I'll take care of you. I promise. I'll protect you. You don't have to be scared anymore. I'm right here…" Your struggling subsided slowly. I laid my head on your chest, listening to your heartbeat as it slowed down. I wrapped my arms around you in my vain attempt to shelter you from the pain. As gently as I could, I patted your head. Your heartbeat quickened again before it resumed its normal pace. I'll take care of you, I promised. I didn't know that in the end, the one to hurt you the most would be me.

Of course, you had to snap out of it and roughly pushed me out your door.

But we had more nights like these. They all began the same way. I would come when you were struggling. You would try to push me out. I would hold you until your nightmare passed. You would push me out again and succeed. But as time passed, your struggles grew less violent. Your thrashings gradually subsided. Your attempts to push me away lessened. And the time I spent in your bed, holding you increased until that one night.

I remember the first time I woke up next to you.

Every night, you suffer a bout of bloodlust. You fight with Shizuka in your dreams. You relive that night of no return again. You were so emotionally exhausted, so mentally worn out, so physically drained. So you would almost succumb to the animal in you when I come in. But you're so strong, even when you're at your weakest. You're so stubborn, even when you're on the verge of breaking apart. You're so brave, even when you were shouldering such a horrifying burden all alone. You knew that the beast in you was about to roar its ugly head, so you would push me away rather than take the easy way out of unleashing it. You physically pushed me towards the door, but because the beast in you was pulling in the opposite direction, you failed. "Get out, get out…" you would repeat to me. "Leave now. Leave me alone…"

But that night, I came in to find you seated on the floor. Your eyes wide open, lips almost colourless, your body rigid. "Zero…" I started. You bit your lips and closed your eyes, clenching your jaw and tilting your head upwards, as if the very sound of my voice gave you a splitting headache. I had 2 months' worth of experience with your nightly behaviour to know that this Zero was not the nightmare-pursued one I held every night for the past two months, not the Zero who wakes up from his nightmare and pushes me out the door immediately. But this sober Zero was not the one I knew either. The one I knew was brutally cold and would reduce me to ashes with a single glare. The sober Zero I knew would never allow me into his apartment in the first place. But there you were, silently sitting on the floor, your back against the wooden frame of your bed.

I walked towards you. "Why?" you asked.
"Why… what?"
"Why are you coming every night?" Your eyes were still closed, your words coming out with the kind of voice I can now identify as exhaustion.
"I…" You cut me off before I could continue further.
"Why would you continue coming when I push you out every night?"
"Because…" I faltered. I had no acceptable explanation. I knelt down next to you. You bowed your head.
"Can I touch you?" I asked timidly. I had discovered from previous experience, how holding you can steady your trembling body, how patting you tenderly would reduce your terrified mumblings, how physical contact with you once you're conscious earns me a one way ticket out your door.
You didn't answer me. Gingerly, I reached out a hand to your face. As tenderly as I could, I placed my hand on your cheek. I felt you clench at my slightest touch.
"I won't hurt you," I whispered.
You turned away from me. "Why," you asked again, "Why would you continue this?"
I remained silent, keeping my hand on your cheek.
"I'm nobody to you. Why would you stay?" Your voice was starting to change, from exhaustion to breaking point.
"You're not a nobody. You're… You're hurt. I…" I wondered if these were the right words to say, "I want to heal you."

You smirked, a faint look of disgust on your face. "How? How would you heal me?"
I didn't know how. I didn't know how to bring back the light to your eyes. I didn't know how to resuscitate a dead man.
"Please… look at me," I asked. Open your eyes; I want to drown in that ocean again.
"You don't even know what's wrong with me, how would you heal me?" you asked again, squeezing your eyes shut.
Your words pierced through me. I knew. I knew about your family, about how you watched them die; all from holding you as you sleep and listening to your murmurs.
I learnt the rest from Chairman. I knew that the one who killed them left you alive to torture you, that you used to have a brilliant mischievous smile, that nobody ever saw that same smile again since, that you shunned everyone from your world since. I knew that today was their 5th death anniversary. And I knew that the pain was pushing you over the edge.

As gently as I could, I wrapped both arms around you, trying in vain to protect you.
"Stop it!" you snarled. "Stop acting as if you know everything, stop acting as if you could cure me," you growled. "Let go of me, now."
"I hear you talking in your sleep. I know that much."
I felt you freeze.
"What do I say?" you finally spoke.
"You ask that woman to stop. You ask her to let go. You ask her to leave. But she didn't, did she? She took everything away from you. She hurt you."

Your body started trembling again. You stopped breathing. Your eyes are squeezed shut even more tightly.
I stroked your back, "Shhh, she's not here. She can't hurt you. You're safe now, I promise."
"Shut up… shut up…"
"I'm sorry. Shhh, you're okay now. I'll take care of you."

I pulled you closer to me, closer than we've ever been before.
This closeness scared me. I was afraid of your cinnamon, woody scent. I was afraid of your toasty warmth. I was afraid of your entrancing eyes. I was afraid of your perfectly angled jawline and sculpted cheekbones.
I was afraid that I might not be able to let go. How can something that's supposed to be wrong feel so right.

"It hurts." You finally broke the silence.
"Sorry… sorry…" I mumbled as I got myself to release my hold on him.
You pulled yourself up, pulling me up with you.
I stared at you, just as you stared at me, confused, each of us thinking what to do next, thinking what to say.
"I'll… I'll leave now. Sorry." I broke our staring contest and turned to leave.
"Don't." I turned back to look at him, unsure if I heard correctly.
He had his head bowed but he didn't repeat his statement. He just stood there before me, before shuffling into bed, unable to look at me.
I slipped into the bed, next to him. He jolted a little. "I've slipped into bed with you several times now, while you were sleeping." I told him playfully. "I know," he duly informs me.
I honestly have, but those were times when his thrashings were violent and would have landed him on the floor. Now, when he's calm and awake, the aura is different. It's calm, almost soothing.

I watched him, noting that it was not only the colour of his eyes that were my undoing; it was the shape, the eyebrows and the overall expression of it. His cheekbones were high, his jaw exceptionally sharp, the tendons between his broad shoulders and neck was pronounced. Overall, he was one hell of a male species.
"You're staring."
I turned away, blushing deep red. "No, I'm not," I insisted.
Silence hung in the air for a minute.
"Thank you," you said.
I pulled myself closer to you as reply. Neither of us slept that night, neither of us spoke further either. As the first rays of sunlight crept in through the windows, I realized with a pang.

You were the first person I've greeted the morning with. Kaname ups and leaves in the middle of the night. You were the first one I've watched the sun rise with.

"Hey, Zero?" I propped myself up to check if you were awake.
"What?"
"We're watching the sunrise together." Saying that sentence out loud made my heart feel lighter.
"The sun rises every morning." Thank you, Mr Obvious.
I jabbed you in the ribs and that was how I discovered your weak spot.
That was the first of the many sunrises we watched together.

A/N
If you would notice, the first time Yuki touches Zero is that scene where she opens her door to find him in a pool of blood and attempts to nurse him, Chapter 7. Hope this chapter didn't disappoint.