"Flashbacks may consist of images, sounds, smells, or feelings, and are often triggered by ordinary occurrences, such as a door slamming or a car backfiring on the street. A person having a flashback may lose touch with reality and believe that the traumatic incident is happening all over again."

-RAINN

Valek held my hand with insurmountable patience, "What do you need, love?"

I needed to forget. I needed to forget the way my skin melted away under the blazing torch Reyad held over me. I needed to remember that I was no longer there. That Reyad was long dead and buried beneath the ice. That anything I could possibly see or feel to remind me of him was only a false shadow.

I needed to remember how to breathe again.

And, somehow, between the seizures, I was able to tell him. Tears streamed down my face as I drowned myself.

"I'll count for you."

He counted four times before I managed to latch onto it. The rhythm slowly stabilized me as my breaths lengthened.

"Take your time, Yelena. You're doing really well."

His voice brought me to a shaky calm. It was quiet and the cold night air felt refreshing and clean. We were outside and could only hear a very faint clamor from the festivities. My tired limbs told me we had probably ran several laps around the tents.

I turned to him with a grateful smile and buried my face in his neck. He held me silently and his steady pulse anchored me to reality.

There was a shuffle of footsteps and I sensed Ari and Janco approach. Unable to face them, I didn't look up.

As always, Valek rescued me. His arm tightened with reassuring security and comradeship. "We're both tired and overwhelmed. You two can stay and continue to enjoy yourselves while we go back on our own."

There was something in their silence that unnerved me completely. I ventured a peek. Janco fidgeted as he kicked a small pebble and Ari watched us both with eyebrows raised and the corners of his mouth turned slightly down. Ari muttered something about having to apologize to their new friend about my outburst and mistaken identity.

It was a silent walk back to the castle and to my suite.

Valek set the cup of tea on the end table and began to pull the curtains open. It was not yet sunset, but the hazy skies made it dark enough.

I cradled the warm cup in my hands. "Today just wasn't a good day to go out because it's the anniversary, isn't it?"

He stopped. An old sorrow pulled at the corners of his mouth. "Yes. It is. But don't worry too much about me. You're going through something far more difficult, love."

I shook my head. "Your pain is very real too. And I wish I could have been there for you all those other years."

"Likewise." Valek looked at me pointedly and assessed me. "It must have been difficult at more than a few points for you."

It suddenly struck me how often we were apart. The fact that we were able to achieve any kind of intimacy was absolutely astounding.

I worked to keep the conversation on him. "Has anything helped you get through this in the past?"

"Nothing really." He sat on the couch and kneaded his temples. "I carve statues and I sharpen my knives. It's really just a waiting game for the day to go by. But it has grown easier for me over the years."

"It seems like staying active helps you."

Valek smiled mirthlessly. "It's avoidance at the very most. It helps me forget how restless I am; how angry and for a while, bitter."

"I can't imagine feeling any other way."

"Not being able to feel anything else in these situations is always the hardest part. When I pledged my loyalty to the Commander, even when I hadn't realized it yet, something changed. I had a different goal and purpose to work towards. Otherwise, my desire for vengeance would have just taken everything. There would have been nothing left of me to go on with." He shook his head. "But there's no point in thinking about that, is there? You can't let your past decide your future."

His use of my favorite phrase wasn't lost on me and I smiled. "There isn't. But it's normal to think about it sometimes."

"There are things that would remind me even after all these years. A crash – whether it's from a tree being cut down or a servant dropping a package – it's enough to bring back the memories."

I listened quietly as he continued, "And today I could barely stand to hear the sound of a knock on the door."

"That must be so hard for you – not being able to forget something that happened this long ago." I imagined the king's ruthless men pounding on their door in the harsh winter. I saw his family shaking in their humble hovel of a home, too petrified to answer and even more afraid to not.

"It is. But I wouldn't forget even if I could. As painful as it is, it has made me who I am."

Would I forget Reyad's abuse if I could? I realized in that instant that the answer was yes. I would no longer feel this way and what Jairus did to me may have never happened.

"Thank you for listening, love." I looked up quickly at Valek, who stood. "I'll let you get some rest."

I thought of him going back to his suite alone. I thought of the insomnia and the cold, aching loneliness that'd come with it. And I wanted so badly to comfort him, to take some of that pain away.

"Valek, wait." I walked up to him and, before I could lose the nerve, locked my arms around his neck and kissed him.

He returned the kiss gladly and, when I snuffed out the candle with an inviting smile, we were soon on the bed.

For a while I was able to handle it. I stared across the room to where the two stone walls met and became an apathetic spectator. But when he began to loosen the buttons on my shirt my body began to stiffen.

No, I commanded it. Become pliant again. It's too late to turn back. It'll be over soon. I began to count the cracks in the ceiling.

I turned my head as he removed my shirt; squeezed my eyes shut when a hand scanned my ribs briefly before traveling down to tug at the hem of my undershirt.

It'll only hurt if you let it. He loves you. He cares so much. Relax: It's the least you could do after all he's done for you. My heart only pounded painfully faster.

Reach out, I commanded my hands. You still know how to do this. You have to do this. But they remained by my side, white fists clenched around the bed sheets.

Pull him closer and relax into him. You've done this so many times. Let him believe you can still enjoy this. He needs to believe that. He has to believe that. My blood turned to ice.

In my racing thoughts I hadn't noticed Valek pull away until he was no longer on top of me. When I opened my eyes, I saw his blue ones peering at me in concern.

"Do you want to continue?" Valek spoke so softly my heart shattered.

Wordlessly, I shook my head as a cold shudder escaped me, and despite my efforts I could no longer meet his eyes.

Suddenly self-conscious and vulnerable in my undress, I pulled the covers up over my chest as I sat up.

I closed my eyes. I couldn't even do this one simple task.

A warm fabric was gently draped over my shoulders and I realized it was my discarded shirt. Valek sat next to me and turned his head as I rapidly buttoned it.

When I had finished, he whispered in the darkness, "I'm sorry, Yelena. I didn't stop soon enough."

It was too difficult to talk in the bedroom. Everything was too close – too triggering. We went to the living area where he waited for me to begin.

"I know this is supposed to be different. And it's been hard, us not-" I couldn't even finish the sentence.

Valek glanced up sharply. "No, love. You are never obligated to do this under any circumstance. This has to be something, that without exception, we both want at the same time."

My heart lightened at his words. I could only marvel at how safe he was always able to make me feel.

When I could no longer see Valek's receding back, I closed the door and leaned heavily against it.

"Finally: alone at last. I thought he'd never leave." Reyad lounged on the bed in what had been Valek's place. He patted the spot next to him with a smirk. "Aren't you coming to bed, love?"

Trembling, I turned to face him. "Get out."

My wrath didn't faze him. He sat up, held a hand out, and bade to me again. When he spoke, his voice was sweet; the way it always was when I did well on his tests or had by some miracle managed to please him. "Come here, sweetheart."

Too tired to struggle, I climbed into the bed next to him.

Reyad's hand rested just above my skin as it hovered down the length of my body. "You see? You always come back to me, right where you belong. Secretly, you need to feel this way. You want to feel this way."

I gave him one last glare of defiance before I curled onto my side with my back to him at the edge of the bed. I shut my eyes when I felt a lecherous arm snake around me as he slithered his way inside me: where he had once been and where he always will be.

~Janco and Ari~

"So it turns out there's one couple that's still here." Janco handed the dossier to Valek.

"They claim to be seeing relativies." Ari added. "It's funny how so few MD-1 folks manage to marry or transfer out but everyone these days has relatives from over there."

Valek sifted through the file. "You did all this?"

Ari rolled his eyes. "If he doesn't count all the heavy lifting and paper cuts Yelena sustained for him. He hasn't been in the library in ages."

Janco squirmed in his seat. "Well if you put it that way..."

Valek narrowed his eyes.

"Alright, alright! So I had some help. But for the record, she offered, right Yele-holy snow cats is she really that tired?!"

At some point during the briefing, Yelena's head came into contact with the table and her eyes had drifted shut. She tossed and turned against the hard surface, her eyes darting about behind closed eyelids and her limbs twitching to flee. Janco cringed at how vulnerable she seemed with her head buried in her arms – as if hiding away from the rest of the world.

Valek made a sharp motion with one hand to indicate absolute silence. In a few swift and graceful movements, he had her cloak set on her back and his own folded into a makeshift pillow which he tucked under her head.

Yelena finally woke when the sun had nearly set. She flinched sharply at the sound of Valek's chair scraping against the stone floor.

"Did you have a good nap?" He asked as he continued to write.

"I've had better." She replied as she shrugged off the cloak and glanced about her.

"We discussed the investigation involving border crossing happening in pairs. There is one couple still residing in MD-6 waiting for travel conditions to improve. It makes sense to question them for anything out of the ordinary."

"That's good." Yelena blinked rapidly as she concentrated. Her eyes glazed over as she began to straighten her things.

"But of course you'd already know that as Janco was nearly about to take credit for your work."

"That's nice of him." Her voice was dazed as she stood limply, unaware of Valek's concerned eyes on her. "I should go..."

~Yelena~

Ari and Janco walked towards me with purposeful strides. I set the folder I had been collating down and clasped my hands.

Ari asked briefly if I had been caught up after my bout of unconciousness. When I answered in affirmative, he continued, "You'll be doing this interrogation right?"

My shoulders slumped as I immediately recalled my last failed mission with General Samitar. "I'm sure Valek wouldn't mind doing it."

Janco raised an eyebrow at me. "But it makes more sense for you to do it. Everyone knows that."

"He can take care of this just as well as I can, i fnot better."

The Power Twins turned to each other and their hands took over for their now bland and silent faces. After several minutse of intricate gestures, they concluded their debate and turned back to me.

"Yelena..." Janco rubbed his scar, unsure of where to begin.

"You have to be the one to do this." Ari finished for him flatly.

Janco nodded in complete agreement.

"It shouldn't matter as long as the job gets done." I argued.

Light blonde hair flashed in the sunlight as Ari crossed his arms and shook his head at me. "For you and during this time it does. Because other wise, it means you're cowering behind Valek and letting him handle all your problems again. This investigation is personal for you and you know it. Things are not going to get better or easier for you if you keep doing this, Yelena."

Reluctantly, I took a seat next to him on the window sill. There were a momentary, tense silence between the three of us.

"Do you remember Nix, Yelena?" Ari asked.

I nodded and shuddered. How could I forget?

"Do you remember how you finally managed to solve that problem? You learned to fight and, in doing so, found the strength to stand up to your enemies. This is the exact same situation."

"Then there was Goel." Janco added with a proud beam, "And you didn't evne need me to help you out of those chains he put on you."

I stared at him blankly.

"Yelena, you're like an acrobat right now." Ari explained patiently. "But instead of finishing your routine, you just keep jumping into the safety net. It's alright to fall once in a while but eventually that net won't hold with all the weight you keep putting on it. You can't keep using it like that. It's not what it's there for."

Janco nodded in agreement. "In a nutshell you won't be better until you can finish your routine. We felt we needed to tell you because the net didn't look like it was ever going to."

"You're saying Valek's my net isn't he?" I asked quietly.

They looked at each other before turning back to me so say in unison, "Yes."

"He's exhausted, Yelena." Janco tore his way into my reverie.

My hand clenched around the hem of my shirt so tightly the knuckles whitened.

"He's worried about you all day and night. And I'm sure it's because, more than anything, he wants to fight this battle for you."

"But he can't." Ari cut in, "and it's killing him."

My skin prickled at the word, "killing."

"I just can't do any of it right now." I managed to force out as my lungs collpased on itself. "If you two knew...had any idea how this feels for me right now..."

Janco's gaze softened. "And we understand that. We want you to be better, Yelena. You are absolutely stronger than this. You've gotten by with even less before."

Ari placed a hand on my shoulder. "We'll still be here to support you every step of the way. But you have to make the choice to let go of this dependence you're developing on Valek."

I looked back down on the stack of reports and sighed. I gave them the most reassuring smile i could possibly muster.

CW: Acts of self-harm; abuse until line break.

I made a detour to the bathhouse on my way back. There, I rolled my sleeves up to my elbows and turned the ducts on.

As the water ran, I retrieved a towel and set it aside. I had picked the afternoon lull when I was sure I'd be alone. But just to be safe I closed the door and propped a chair up against it.

The knife opened with a small snick. I held the blade in my hand briefly, reading the inscription: sieges weathered. My first switchblade...and it was still as sharp as ever, I realized, when I sliced it into the skin of my forearm.

I sucked the back of my teeth as a sharp burn flooded me. Crimson blood flowed through the wound, drowning the once clean skin.

The first scar. The first time those experiments became what they were. Brazell had started throwing knives in place of the balls and swinging sticks. But like a wide-eyed idiot, I held up my arm to block them when I should have ran.

The knife moved down to a large, circular scar and reopened it. My arm was smeared with red and I bled a river. I shoved a fist into my mouth to kill the scream before it could be borne.

I didn't learn my lesson. I kept freezing and blocking. A part of me still wouldn't believe it at that point. The General who had been so kind to me all those years. I still expected him to bound up to me, to wrap his arms around me, and to soothe me like the parent I so desperately wanted. Or for it to all be a bad dream. But there was no comfort. Nor even encouragement. There were only curses and reproaches. Idiot, he said. Don't use your arms, use your mind!

One more, I promised myself silently as I stopped at a scar just next to the blue line on my wrist. There was something satisfying about the way the blood flowed…the way I felt pain…it took all the pressure away, leaving me light and no longer stifled.

So it wasn't some kind of sick mistake, I realized months later. He really meant to hurt me. This man, who took me in, who fed me off his table and, who gave me, so freely, a roof over my head. I could no longer deny it when Brazell turned to beam at his son for causing pain so eagerly and ecstatically.

My eyes lingered on another scar that rested next to that one. I shrugged inwardly. Might as well, if I came this far already. The knife ate its way into it and I bled.

I watched as my arm ran red with blood. Somehow the worst burn was always delayed until the harm completely stopped. But it came with full force when it arrived. I clamped my hand over my mouth to stifle the screams. Tears streamed down my cheeks.

Finally, it went away. And I was left eerily calm and relaxed, as if I had managed to bleed out the tension.

With a sigh, I placed it under the shower and watched the water wash the blood away. Then slowly, I extracted it and covered it with the towel, applying pressure to stop the bleeding.

Taking a shaky breath, I lowered myself to the floor and sat with my back to the wall. The knife fell to the floor with a dull clatter and I clamped my hand over my mouth to suppress my whimpers. The blood eventually stopped flowing as it always did. But it still hurt like hell as I dressed and bandaged the wounds with alcohol and bandages from my med kit.

After making sure there was no blood left on the floor or on the sides of the bath, I stood. I used the already stained towel to wipe the blade clean and packed both carefully away in my bag.

I leaned over the sink in a stupor and didn't wake until long after the water had all drained away with a hollow gurgle. Giving my head a tight shake, I rolled my sleeves back down and regained my composure. My stomach turned cold when I saw the snake bracelet I had set aside.

I snatched it up quickly, snapped it around my wrist, and yanked the sleeve down to hide it from my sight.

"I think this is what they call a step backwards…and then turning around to take a straight dive into a hole right after." Reyad coalesced in the mirror behind me. His lip curled in disgust at the sight.

Unperturbed by his presence, I shrugged. "I wasn't ever meant to be better."

"That's rather cynical of you."

I wiped the tears away as the rest of the tension within me relaxed. "No. Given everything that's happened, it's realistic. But you're going to disagree, aren't you?"

"What can I say? With all that hell you gave me over those years, I expected more. You never used to handle your problems like this. What went wrong this time, Yelena?"

"What went wrong? What went right?"

"You're alive, aren't you?"

I burst out laughing. He seemed so genuinely confused. "It's because I couldn't kill myself right."

Not waiting to hear his reply, I snatched up my things, yanked the chair aside, and ran out the door.

Servants I might have imagined walked past me without a second glance as I stood shuddering against the wall. I could still feel the dull throbbing of my arm in the darkness.

What did I do? What the hell did I just do?!

I shut my eyes as my nails dug painfully into the stone wall behind me. I hated myself too much at this point to even cry.

My eyes fluttered open as the tiny voice in the back of my head began to process and rationalize this.

It wasn't healthy, but it was coping, wasn't it? It was enduring. And in a sick way, I thought as I forced myself to look back down at my bandaged arm, it felt good. Because this time, I was the one causing pain. I was in control. I decided exactly when and how I would be hurt.

And there was also that calm. After the shaking finally stopped and the shame melted away, there was left a muted, painfully peaceful, silence.

I finally breathed. My chest ached with the breath I had held for too long, but I had finally managed to carve a hole in my flesh to release it.

Once again, another kinda hard chapter to write. For those who have been brave enough to make it this far, I commend you. This sort of thing was never meant to be pretty, and of all godforsaken things, "romantic" (even a protective factor like Valek can't fix everything). It's just debilitating and destructive. And while Ari and Janco are "risk factors," they are not meant to be the only reason things happen the way they do.

Reader: As usual, your reviews are wonderful and do inspire me to update so soon. ^_^ I hope I made that ending a bit clearer. And it's okay. You can totally hate Janco's and Ari's guts right now. I'll hate them with you. XD

Please review and be ghost followers no more. :D