Vision Of Escaflowne Fan Fiction ❯ Heart of the Dragon ❯ Temptation ( Chapter 22 )

Hitomi could not believe what he had just said. She started laughing so hard that she couldn’t breathe. "Have it for me?" she gasped and kept laughing. Van stopped and stared after her as she stumbled down the hallway to their room still laughing. She opened the door and closed it, laughing even more. He could hear her silly laughter even through the door and grinned at the smiles on the guards faces as he opened and closed his door.

She had gone through the bathing room and into her room, but he could still hear her giggles. She stopped suddenly and he wondered if she had hurt herself. Then she started again, and even harder than before. She said to herself, "I could picture that!! I could so picture that!! I can't believe he said that!!!" she continued to laugh, and Van walked into her room, leaning in the doorway.

"So you can picture that, can you?"

Hitomi practically tore off her robe and laughed some more. "Oh, God, yes!!! I can't believe I could picture something like that!!! Can you picture it?!"

Van contemplated for a moment as she looked through her armoire and pulled out a light purple gown. He shrugged and said, "I don’t want to."

At this Hitomi started laughing again and she had to sit down before she fell. She sat on the bed and fell back, flinging her arms back and trying to hold in her beyond weird laughter. Van just shook his head and walked back into his room to get a shirt on.

He came back with a dark gray silk one, and he felt somewhat disappointed to learn that she was already dressed. She was sitting at her dresser, a brush with soft bristles in her hand. She pulled it through her hair, which was almost down to the middle of her back. Van stepped up behind her and fingered the softness of her smooth hair.

Hitomi handed Van the brush, since he loved to play with her hair. She sat there and thought while he made funny hair-dos that made her smile. He was surprisingly good with arranging her hair into something pleasing, and sometimes she even kept it on all day long. She handed him a brush that curled her hair into these wonderfully big ringlets that he loved to twine his fingers around. He piled her hair up high on her head and held it in place with a few pins. He adjusted it in a few places before he tugged out two tresses on her forehead to caress her shoulders, then he twisted them around the brush to make the curls that he loved so much.

Hitomi stared at herself in the mirror, wondering if Van had become some sort of magical beautician. Her hair was stunning!! How had he done it? "Van, if we ever got poor, you could work as some hair specialist and we would become rich in just a few days."

"Really? You think it's that good? I could have done better, and I must admit, you do look sexy."

Hitomi giggled and patted her hair, making sure it would stay in place, and found herself even more surprised when she felt it was held into a sturdy place. She patted it again and then twisted her fingers around one of the ringlets. She ended up putting it into her mouth and sucking on it, which she had never done before. Van was just standing there, staring at her mouth as she sucked on it.

When Hitomi realized what she was doing to him, she stopped so she wouldn’t torture him further. She thought he would relax, but it seemed like he got more tense with each passing moment. She hadn't thought that just staring at her without her doing anything would be such a turn-on.

Van wasn’t just staring at her, he was thinking such carnal thoughts that he couldn’t help himself. He had caught himself gazing at her breasts and the slow rising and falling motion of them as she breathed. Just thinking of her breasts had him as hard as a stone and he turned away, trying to control himself. But he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He couldn’t stop thinking about how soft she was, how she moaned, how she arched against him when he did something she liked, how she—

"Van?"

"Yes?" he ground out between clenched teeth.

"Um...nothing. Never mind."

Just watching her lips move as she talked did something unbelievable to him. He wondered if she knew what was going through his mind. She could certainly tell by his body, and his very evident arousal that he was thinking something, or she was doing something.

Hitomi's eyes widened when she happened to glance down at him in the mirror. How—how could he just stand there like that? And what had she done that had him...that way? He was just staring at her, consuming her with his eyes. Every single inch of her skin suddenly seemed alive and tingled with a growing heat. Her blood roared through her veins with an ill-repressed urgency that had her gripping the arms of her chairs until her fingers were white. Still, he just stood there.

Van watched her fingers tighten on the arms of the chair and wondered if she was feeling the same thing. A light blush rose up on her cheeks and he knew she was, especially in the way her fingers were turning white from holding on so hard.

Hitomi couldn’t believe a stare would do something like this. A shiver went down her spine and she tried to hide what she was feeling, but it didn’t work very well. She wondered if this was some new technique he had come across. She wanted to smile at the thought. If he continued with what he was doing, she didn’t know what she would do. Probably fall to the floor feeling like a pile of mush.

Van's fingers started twitching when he thought of running his hands over her body. His eyes followed the unanticipated movement of Hitomi's tongue as it brushed over her lips in a tantalizing sweep. He didn’t know how much longer he could stand there.

Hitomi decided to enthrall him with just a simple seduction of sitting there, pretty much doing nothing. She knew that if she acted indifferent, it would drive him crazy, it always did. But she wanted to try something different.

She felt guilty only for a second as she undid the masterpiece on top of her head. It fell down in tumbling waves and she closed her eyes, running her fingers through it. She gave her head a small, graceful shake and took her long fingers out of it to go to the front of her gown. She undid a few buttons, never taking her eyes off him. She had his total attention.

She stopped when she undid four of the buttons that marched clear up to her neck. Ever since she had become pregnant, she had become more modest. Which made her think of another thing as she rested her hands in her lap. Why did Van want her so much when she was so fat and felt so ugly? She lifted her shoulder in a graceful shrug and flipped her hair over one shoulder. She ran her fingers through it again, her fingers going through it in slow strokes that made his eyes darken when he thought of her doing that to his body.

She flipped it back over her shoulder and undid three more buttons. By now, the top swell of her breasts were visible above her cotton chemise. She pushed aside some of the material of her gown so he could have a better look. She gave him a quick glance and saw him watching every motion of her fingers.

She took advantage and lifted her gown up. His eyes went straight down as she did so. She continued with rolling down her white stockings which went to her knees. She didn’t have shoes on yet so she just pulled them completely off without having to fling off her shoes. When she was done with that, she pushed her gown back down and went back to her top, at which she undid several more buttons.

Van couldn’t take it anymore. He went over to her and caught her hands, pulling them away. He promptly ripped the front of her gown clear down to her feet. He pushed it off her shoulders and then grabbed hold of the top of her chemise, which he also ripped right down the center. She didn’t even bother to stop him, she was too engaged in the entrapment of watching him as he flung her torn clothes away from her. He picked her up and brought her to the bed, at which he laid her down. He tore off his shirt, making buttons fly. He didn’t have any shoes on either, so he only had to pull of his pants, which he almost ripped to pieces also. Their poor clothes, they were going to need a whole bunch more made after she gave birth, especially if Van attacked her like this constantly. Not that she minded.

Van pulled her to the edge of the bed and grabbed hold of her hips. He almost forgot to be careful with her, but remembered at the last moment. He came into her gently, making her moan. She wrapped her legs around him and her arms twined around his neck to hold him closer. She decided that she needed to be closer and locked her ankles around his back as he moved slowly within her. He held onto her tighter when he couldn’t stand being slow and gentle anymore, and moved harder and faster. She moaned into his mouth when she felt pleasure wash over her in surprisingly gentle waves that felt utterly delicious. Van followed a moment later. He buried his face in her neck and groaned long and loud, making her quiver.

Van stayed where he was, not moving. He was uncomfortable, but he could have fallen asleep right then and there. He closed his eyes and inhaled the scent of her hair. Lavender. A smell that relaxed a person and invited one to breathe more deeply. He pushed her onto the bed and laid next to her. He tugged the blankets over them and fell right asleep.

Hitomi laid there, wondering about the odd sexual appetites of her husband. Some days he just wanted to hold and cuddle her, to take care of her and make sure she was comfortable. Then other days, he wanted her so ravenously bad that she wanted if he was a starving man, which technically he was. They hadn't made love since before he had been captured, and today just seemed like he couldn't hold it back anymore. She yawned over her smile and let his deep breathing ease her into sleep.

 ******************

Her world was blue and pink, which she thought bizarre. Everything was so big. Huge mountains towered around and above her. Trees, rocks, grass, even the clouds where gigantic. She started walking around, to explore and find out where she was. It seemed like she was by the ocean, for she could smell it.

She walked farther, until she saw the land end abruptly and water stretch out in a vast ocean. The water was such an absurd baby blue, it looked ugly. The trees were pink, the leaves a darker shade. The clouds were pink, against the cerulean sky. She wondered why everything was like that.

She walked closer to the cliff's edge, which she recognized as the cliff that she had been thrown off of, and where she had first used her wings.

She heard a cry, a small distressing one, that made her hurry and walk faster to the edge of the cliff. The water sprayed up high, bathing the air. She peered over the sheer wall and looked down, only to have her face immediately soaked. When the water retreated, she wiped her eyes and looked down again.

Jutting out further down the cliff was a flat rock, one big enough that she could lay on. On the rock, laid two little bundles of blue and pink. She gasped when she realized they were babies. She tried to reach for them, but it was too far down. They cried harder, wailing for help that she couldn’t give them. She got tears in her eyes as the crying got worse and it tore at her heart. She switched her body around so that her legs were hanging off the precipice and she reached desperately with her feet. She felt something brush the tip of her toes and she tried to look down, but she couldn’t without falling over. She took a deep breath and slipped over the edge.

She landed smoothly on the jutting rock, and with barely any room to spare. She picked up the blue bundle and then the pink one. She pushed back the blankets to reveal the two most beautiful little faces she had ever seen. She cooed at them and made funny faces so that they stopped crying and realized they were safe in her arms. She looked closer and a fierce frown gathered on her brow when she saw how they had eyes the color of pond scum, and hair as black as midnight. Her eyes. Van's hair. She gasped and cried out when they started melting like wax in her hands, pouring through her fingers and onto the ground. The oozy wax fell like water over the rocks and to the ocean below. She bent over and tried to reach for them for some odd reason, but all her fingers caught was air. She felt her eyes water and tears fall down her cheeks, as she let her arm hang limply over the edge.

She felt the wind blow and she squeezed her eyes shut in the pain of not being able to save them. The wind blew harder and harsher, until she had to hold on. The gale-force winds whipped at her and she started to scream at the stinging horrendous pain. She opened her eyes as much as she could and watched the skin on her arms start to peel away, her clothes tearing away from her body.

Her skin liquefied, flying off her body and into the wind. She watched her arm being torn off and disgorged from her body. Blood spurted and gushed out, flying into the wind in a continuous stream. She felt her body being sucked dry of all blood until she looked like a dead, shriveled corpse. By then she was too weak and too light to be able to hold on, so she just let go, sailing into the air until gravity took effect and she was hurled into the ocean, the impact so hard it smashed her.

As if she was another person watching from a distance, she watched as her head exploded and her shriveled body sink into the swirling and raging ocean, as if it had gobbled her up and ate her.

 ******************

She opened her eyes and looked around. What kind of dream was that? It was horrible, one of the worst she had ever seen before. Her dreaming had increased lately, and she had told Nara. Nara had said that pregnant women dream more, so that must explain why it was so weird and horrific. She didn’t understand why she hadn't jerked up out of bed screaming, as she would have done on other nightmares.

She sat up and rubbed her forehead absent-mindedly. She glanced down at Van, who was still sleeping beside her. She smiled at his peaceful face and leaned down to give him a gentle loving kiss. He drifted out of sleep slowly and gradually, unlike how he normally jerked out of sleep ready to kill someone. He was a man who liked his sleep.

He let his eyes open a second to see who had woken him, and closed his eyes again, a lazy smile on his face. Hitomi laid back down and rested her chin on his chest. "What's that smile for?" she questioned with abandoned laziness, just like Van.

"I had a dream," he said suddenly, all of his languorousness of a moment ago long gone. "It was so weird. It was like one of your visions that you have. But...I can't remember it anymore. All I know was that I had some weird dream. It wasn’t bad, in fact it was good. Maybe I'll remember it later."

"Vision? A good vision? No wonder why you were dreaming. I would like an actual good vision for once. Although, I haven't had a vision since Celena turned into Dilandau. I guess I'm grateful. Or maybe my powers are gone!"

"Gone?" Van snorted. "I'd like to see that happen. Do you think it would be a good or bad thing if you lost your powers?"

"Bad. How many times did my powers save you?"

"Lets just say that I wouldn’t be here right now."

Hitomi tried to keep the sad thoughts away as she contemplated what it would be like if Van would have been killed from one of those times she had saved him. She said something to keep her mind off it. "When are Merle and Allen going to leave?"

"Maybe in a few weeks. Merle needs to heal doesn’t she? I have no idea about that kind of woman stuff," he said, exasperated.

Hitomi giggled and said, "What kind of woman stuff do you know?"

Van thought for a moment and shrugged. "Nothing."

"Ha! That’s so funny, Van. If you didn’t know anything, then I would be so...how do I say it...not pleasured."

"Not pleasured? Oh, well, I guess I do have some knowledge of women."

"Van, how many women have you been with?"

Van tried not to change expression on his face. The shock of her question was still going through his mind, and he couldn’t think for a minute. "Uh...um...not a lot."

"Are you telling me the truth?" Hitomi asked. She didn’t really care, she just was wondering.

"No."

She glared at him. "Spill it."

Van smiled at her and kissed her forehead. "I don’t think you should know."

Hitomi's eyes narrowed and she gave him a long, hard stare. "Tell me anyhow."

"Hitomi, if I tell you this, you have to understand and I don’t want you to get mad at me."

"I won't," she whispered and softened her face.

"Promise?"

She nodded, adding a little smile.

He took a deep breath and she giggled at how she was raised up along with his chest as he did so. "Alright. I suppose you want to know everything."

"Yep. Even your first time."

"Isn't that going a little too far?"

"Nope."

Van couldn’t help but laugh. "Too bad you can't tell me about yours, considering I was your first time."

"Get on with it," Hitomi said with a smile on her face.

"Let's see. I think it was a year or so after we started rebuilding Fanelia and you had left. We had most of the taverns up, so people would have somewhere to stay. We had just finished one of the temples, I think the one we were married in twice. The next day we were going to start Escaflowne's holding cell, which took two years to complete." He paused at her smile and continued. "It was getting late, and I was exhausted. The palace wasn’t even close to being finished, in fact, it wasn’t finished until almost last year. Therefore, I was stuck sleeping either outside or in the taverns like everyone else was. My title didn’t mean much, I guess," he thought with a smile. "If you got done early with whatever you were doing, then you would get to the closest tavern as quick as you could and reserve a room. I got done with the temple, and hurried over to whatever tavern I could get to, and got a room. I was eating something and had just finished when this woman, a very voluptuous woman, if I remember right, had come up to me, making all these suggestions. Being the lonely, very eager teenager I was, I couldn’t help myself. When I wasn’t working, I was daydreaming about you, which always had me feeling lonely, just in case you were wondering."

"So you followed this woman upstairs to your room and...did it?"

Van laughed. "Yeah, I guess you could call it that. I was too excited and could barely contain myself. Lets just say I spent a very enthusiastic night with that woman. I feel bad, considering I don’t even remember her name."

"How can you not remember her name? At least I remembered yours!!"

Van grinned and shrugged. "Do you want more?"

Hitomi nodded and he ran his fingers through her tousled hair. "My second woman...let me think." He laughed suddenly, saying, "I guess it's appropriate I call it my second woman because it wasn’t my second time!!"

Hitomi slapped her hand on his upper chest and it made him laugh all the harder. "You...just talk before I start calling you names, you perverted man."

"Alright. It was a month later if I recall. I remember how I thought I was better than any man, and I strutted around like the king I was."

Hitomi interrupted him by laughing. "I could picture that."

"I guess that woman I had been with first had told all her little friends and I had half of the women in Fanelia after me. I could have had the pick of any woman I wanted, but I guess I got nervous, especially when I started thinking about you. I kept thinking I was cheating on you or something. It took me that month to wipe that idea out of my mind. After that I assume I went on some sort of chasing women spree."

"You went on a rampage after women?" Hitomi asked, stunned. Then she got a big smile on her face. "Continue."

"When the construction of Fanelia was going underway nicely, I decided I needed to go on some business to other countries and get some allies. Fanelia already had a lot, but some were still neutral. We didn’t have any enemies, even Zaibach. They were one of the neutral countries. When I visited all those far off, exotic places, I found different kinds of women. I was almost doing it too much, and I forced myself to slow down. I didn’t do anything for almost a year, and do you remember that woman you met at the ball in Freid?"

Hitomi's smile on her face disappeared instantly. "All too well."

"I almost attacked her after being abstinent for a year or so. I took her up as my mistress when I was staying in Freid, which had been for a little more than two months. When I left, she offered to come with me back to Fanelia. I think she had fallen in love with me, but I didn’t return any feelings except I enjoyed talking to her. She cried her heart out when I left, and I promised that when I came back I would visit her. It helped some, but I think that she started to come to hate me when I didn’t come back for a long time. I went back two months before you had come and visited her a couple of times, just to make her happy. Then I went back home after a week, for it had been one of those meetings Chid seems to enjoy overly. I was rotting back in Fanelia, wondering if you were ever going to come back when my generals and supervisors came to me with a huge list of beautiful and eligible high status women. I had a ball, although reluctantly, and invited all of the women there. I had the feeling that you were never going to come back, and I couldn’t keep longing for you. I had to have an heir, even if it was just for Fanelia."

"Oh, Van. That’s so sad."

"Yeah. I talked to every woman there, and I was quite amazed at it all. Half of the ladies there weren't even ladies. They came after me offering all these things that I absolutely had to refuse, considering most of them were princesses. The age range shocked me. One of the girls there was eleven years old. I hadn't even been able to talk right to that poor girl, and she didn’t even know why she was there. I felt so horribly bad for her. I couldn’t even believe her father would give her away that young. I had a long talk with my generals after that."

"Eleven? That young? Her father must have been a pig."

"I bet there were even younger girls there, but they lied about their ages for they looked older. After I narrowed down the list, I went out and around Fanelia with each of them, getting to know them better. Most of them were shrews, and I couldn’t stand them. There went three-fourths of the list. Seibu, I knew was the most beautiful woman there, but I didn’t acknowledge it. I got engaged to her, and I found out after a month that she was the most annoying of all. She tried to trap me into rooms and have her way with me, but I just couldn’t do it. She didn’t excite me for some reason. I could have forced myself to, and that was sort of the reason I wanted to marry her. I didn’t want to have some woman that I would drool and chase after, unless that woman was you. I just wanted a wife to have children with and live the rest of my life miserable."

"How could you want to live that way? I can't believe the responsibility you feel sometimes. So I take it I came and saved your life from an ever-lasting Hell, and you are so far living a kind of happily ever after."

"Not if Seibu and Dilandau have their way with your pendant and the power of Atlantis. I don’t understand something though. Zaibach wanted Escaflowne, not your pendant. Were they wrong?"

Hitomi shrugged and the movement of her bare breasts again his chest made him sit up and push her off him. He didn’t want to jump on her again. They hadn't done anything even remotely like this since before they had divorced, and she was probably sore. They shouldn’t have even done it in the first place, since she was so far along in her pregnancy. He hoped he hadn't hurt the baby.

"That letter said that the pendant held the power, not Escaflowne. Odd. Maybe they do need Escaflowne, but they haven't admitted it. Maybe they'll come in the middle of the night and try to capture it. I should increase the security around the holding cell right now." Van went to get up and Hitomi sat up along with him. He smiled at her, getting a good look at her in broad daylight. It had been dark in the room they had first made love in, so he hadn't been able to get much of a look at her. Now he could.

Hitomi blinked and cocked her head to the side at Van's smile. He bent forward and rested his hands on her belly. His fingers splayed and he leaned his head down so he could rest his ear on it. Hitomi grinned and buried her fingers in his hair, one of her favorite places. It had grown back, but it still wasn’t its normal length. She remembered how everyone had given him weird looked, but hadn't said anything. It's not like he had looked bad.

"Come on, kick so I can feel it," Van said and started tickling her. She started laughing and tried desperately to get out of his grasp. He stopped and she sighed, smiling. He went back to his position and was rewarded with a very hard kick to his cheek. "I knew that would work," he pronounced proudly. Whenever Van felt the need to feel the baby move, he ended up tickling her. She didn’t know if it aggravated the baby, or what, but it always gave the same response.

"I think it's going to start exercising now," Hitomi sighed when it started moving around and kicking. Its most enthusiastic times were in the mornings and before she went to sleep, but every once and a while she was granted some more in the afternoon.

Van looked so enthralled that he probably hadn't even heard her. Sometimes when he was so exhausted he nearly collapsed, she would let his head rest on her stomach and he would fall asleep. He seemed so comfortable in that position, and she didn’t understand how he could be. He hadn't been getting a lot of sleep lately, and it was starting to show. He had light marks under his eyes, and sometimes he would just doze off in the middle of the day. She knew he stayed up late, just holding her and protecting her, but she couldn’t tell him to stop. He would just get upset thinking that she didn’t want his protection, when she craved it so badly.

"Don’t fall asleep, Van. Don’t you have to get up and increase the security around Escaflowne's holding cell?"

He didn’t move. She sighed and smiled, realizing too late that he had. The baby gave her another kick and she sat there, letting Van sleep for a few minutes as she let her baby move around to its content. It was then that she started wondering about her child and how big she was. Sometimes Van would get so confused when she got more than one kick, and on different sides. She gasped and the movement made Van jerk up and scowl at her before he realized it was his wife. He murmured something and then went back to his resting place. He wrapped his arms around her whole middle and locked his hands behind her back to make sure she wouldn’t move.

"Oh, no."

Van felt like killing the person who kept disturbing his sleep, but when his sleep fogged mind cleared, he found out it was his wife. He usually barked at her and just moved away from her if she woke him, but not for a few months. If he would do that now she would jump so high and so far she would fall out of their giant bed. Now he just squeezed her until she yelped and it made her be quite. She would laugh after he woke up a few hours later and tell him how much she loved him, and how funny she thought it was when he squeezed her. She hadn't bothered him like this for almost a month, so now he was especially irritated because he needed sleep.

"Van, oh, no." She shook his shoulder and he flopped backwards, attempting to get away from her. He buried himself under the blankets and threw them over his head. She started poking and prodding at parts of his body and she hit the ticklish spot on his side which made him start laughing and come completely out of sleep. He sat up, swatting her hands away to make her stop.

He opened his eyes and he got a good look at the serious and scared look on her face. "What? What's wrong? Did I hurt you? Are you alright? Do you need something? Do you want me to leave? Do you want to go to sleep? Did I—?"

"No, Van. I—I think we have a problem."

"A problem? With the baby?"

"Van, I think we're going to have babies."

"Seriously, what's wrong? Is it really the baby? Are you going to be sick or something?"

"Van." She clasped his hands and squeezed them. "I'm going to have twins."

Van stared at her. "I don’t understand."

"Van, we're going to have twins. I'm going to have two babies. At the same time."

"Twins? Since when?"

"Since I became pregnant! We just didn’t know. I wonder if Nara knew, but didn’t tell us," Hitomi mused aloud. She put her hands on her very rounded stomach and she blinked her eyes to keep back the onslaught of tears.

"Hitomi? What's wrong? Surely it can't be bad. The more the merrier, right? We'll just have a bigger family faster."

"It's not that, Van. I don’t mean to insult Gaea, but you don’t have the technology Earth does. Even on my old home, women who were pregnant with twins still died. Am I going to die, Van?"

"Oh, Hitomi. Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that. Everything will be fine. I promise," Van said, clutching harder at her hands. She went into his arms and cried silently on his shoulder. He felt the tears run down his shoulder and onto his chest, little rolling rivers that dried up quickly. When she quieted, he pulled her back. "You don’t know that we are yet. You just might think we are."

"But Van, I had this dream. It...it had two little babies in it, and they died, they melted in my fingers, and then I did. Oh, Van! We all died! All three of us died!!"

"Shhh. It was just a dream. Don’t worry. Now how about we get up and go do something fun? We never had that snowball fight."

Hitomi sniffed and gathered some of the blankets around her so she would stay warm. "It's not fair now since Merle just gave birth. We were supposed to be on the same team. We should wait a few days or so. Or until she feels like it."

"Alright. Let's think. We can go out and buy out the whole market if you want."

"Maybe after I give birth. I want to see if I get my figure back. I'll probably be so fat that I'll roll instead of walk. Then you'll never want to touch me again!! Oh, no. Why did you get me pregnant so soon?! Why couldn’t we have at least waited for a month? Even a week?! Sometimes I want to hate you!!"

Van felt so horribly bad at that moment that all he could do was slap a pathetic smile on his face. Hitomi looked up at him from her hands and she watched him wipe the smile off his face. The abruptness of it made her give a small laugh and it reappeared. "I should stop saying these things. I should just stop talking at all. I just make people upset with my hormonal words and creep them out. But it is all your fault!! Every ounce of it!!"

Van put his hands up in self-defense. "Hey, if you hadn't been such a willing participant, I doubt you would be pregnant right now."

"What are you saying?" she asked, giving him a suspicious look.

"Exactly what I just said. You seem to chase after me as much as I drool and chase after you. As a result, we made love a lot. And the result of that, you got pregnant."

"Ugh, I refuse to ever have any kind of relationship with you other than talking."

"What?! Do you want me to kill myself?! Sometimes I can't stand myself with how much I want you! You'll drive me insane!! Especially with those looks you give me, or those little suggestive movements with your hands or your—"

"How can you want me so much when I'm so fat?! If I was you I would be so repulsed I would run away and try not to gag!! I'm beginning to wonder about you, Van."

Van's shoulders fell and he stared at her. The look on his face suddenly hardened and he threw back the blankets. "Fine. I was starting to wonder if this relationship was too good to be true."

Hitomi watched as he picked up his tossed about clothes and strode back into his room, slamming the door. She couldn’t believe she said that. She whimpered and choked on her tears. Her hand went to her throat and she felt the tears stream down her face.

She didn’t know how long she had been in her misery, but her thinking got her to stop. Did Van hate her now? Had he ever loved her? Did he stop loving her at some point? She got out of the bed and looked at herself in the mirror. Her face was pale, her eyes red and puffy. Her eyelashes were still spiked from her tears and her hair was a horrible mess. Knots and tangles didn’t even begin to explain it. She tried to run a brush through it, but gave up and let it stay as it was. Most of the knots were under her hair, and the top layer covered it. But the lumps underneath were very visible and poked out some.

She went to her armoire and looked for her most demure and dowdiest looking dress she could find. She wanted to purposefully look depressed and ugly. So ugly that people wouldn’t want to look at her. The thing she pulled out was a beyond baggy faded gray wool, that looked itchy even before she touched it. She put on un-matching stockings and slippers and felt wonderfully off-balance.

She walked back over to the mirror after she was done dressing and gave herself a triumphant smile. Maybe now Van would admit that he did think she was fat and didn’t desire her, and was only forcing himself to. She looked hideous, and didn’t even look like Hitomi. She looked like a person named...Gertrude. She wondered if people would even recognize her.

She gave herself another look, making sure she looked like she wasn’t trying too hard to look ugly. She smiled at herself, for she had never tried to look hideous before. She had always tried to look as pretty as possible. She walked out of the room and down the hallway, intent on finding some people to see their reactions before she saw Van. He probably would just ignore her and act like nothing was wrong with her.

Her first encounter was a servant. The poor man stared at her, wondering what the heck she was. She smiled at him and he backed away, turning around and walking away from her as fast as he could without being overly rude. Oh, how wonderful, she thought and went to look for her next victim. This was actually kind of fun. Maybe next time she did this, if she did that is, she would try and make herself look even worse and chase after people. She started laughing, and it echoed down the halls, making it turn into a distorted, sinister sound that made her smile and laugh harder. The Royal Guard was more than likely going to come and arrest her.

Her next meeting was with a hand maiden who was dusting the pictures in the halls. She didn’t at first see her, but Hitomi made a loud, rude noise and the woman looked in her direction to see who it was. The look on her face was so totally disgusted that Hitomi could barely hold back her smile. The woman tried to look away and go back to her work, but Hitomi kept standing there, watching. After a moment the woman got scared and ran down the hall, trying to get away from her. Hitomi covered her mouth with her hand to make the laugh that came bubbling up not as loud.

She decided that those two reactions were enough to start going to the nicer parts of the palace and explore around there, scaring more people with higher status. Right now Van had three visitors who were staying a few days before they kept traveling on to Palas. The two women and the man would want to leave right away if they saw her. She walked back in the direction of the royal suites and branched off, looking for their rooms to find and scare them.

However, it was not to be. Allen at that moment walked down the hallway and stopped dead in his tracks. He blinked hard a couple times, for he didn’t think he had ever seen such an ugly young woman, and he had seen a lot. He averted his eyes and tried to walk past her, but she leaned against the wall, blocking his passage.

"May I help you?" he asked, annoyed.

"No, I just felt like bothering you. I don’t see why you have to be with Merle all day, when you should spend some time with lonely old me."

"Do I know you? And how do you know my wife? Wait a second." He paused and looked at her harder. He walked up to her closer and pulled the hair on the back of her neck to pull her face closer to his. It didn’t hurt, but Hitomi wondered if he did this with all the people he didn’t know.

"Your hair feels like Hitomi's. Are you her? Hitomi! Are you insane? Why are you dressed like that? And why did you do that to your beautiful hair?! Does Van know you are doing this?"

Hitomi shrugged. "Me and Van...are not on good terms right now."

"What did he do?"

Hitomi smiled. It was always Van who did something, never her. "It’s a long story. I don’t want to talk about it. I would more than likely start crying."

"Do you want me to keep you away from him? You can stay with me and Merle for a while. We are going to be leaving next week, but I don’t know if you and Van are still going to be mad at each other."

Hitomi didn’t know what to say. Instead, she just went into his arms and he hugged her. She was grateful for his friendship. He seemed to understand her more than Van sometimes, but other times Van understood her so well it was scary. She didn’t know how long he just held her, but she started getting tired and almost fell asleep standing in his arms. He chuckled and picked her up easily, carrying her back to his room that he shared with Merle.

His wife was sleeping in the bed when he opened the door and brought a now sleeping Hitomi in there with him. He was exhausted himself, considering he had been awake for more than twenty four hours. He didn’t go to bed until late, just like Van, but right when he had been about to fall asleep, Merle had woken up in severe pain. That’s when it had all started.

He carried Hitomi over to the bed next to Merle and threw back the blankets, setting her under them. They weren't really necessary since a fire was burning, but he put her under them anyhow. He pulled one of Merle's overstuffed chairs over to the bed and plopped down in it, falling asleep as soon as his head hit the back of the chair. He didn’t have to worry about his child, for it was in the infirmary with the healers so Merle could rest.

 ******************

Van had fury seething inside him that he didn’t understand. Was it because of what Hitomi had said? Or was their love really a joke? No, that was impossible. Even if Hitomi hated him to death, he would still love her desperately. Had she said what she had because she was so scared? No, maybe she was telling the truth. Maybe he did have some problem. Most men would be repulsed by a pregnant female and would try to stay away from them. But he didn’t, damn it! He thought Hitomi was the most glorious and exquisite thing that had ever graced Gaea and Earth, and her being pregnant made her all the more beautiful to him because it was his child she was carrying.

The conversation he was having with himself made him oblivious to everything else going on around him. He soon found himself back in his room. But she wasn’t in there. She must be somewhere else, or in her own room, he thought as he walked over to the bed.

He went to her side and laid down, burying his face in her pillow. He could smell the perfume of her hair, and it made him take deep breaths to savor it. He pulled it down to his side and he hugged it, picturing it as her. He snuggled into it closer when he started shivering from the coldness of the room. He didn’t know if he was just too lazy or tired, but he didn’t even try to go under the blankets. It was odd how tired he felt today. He remembered having days like this before, but when he had been younger. Now that he was twenty, he wondered if he was getting sick.

He grinned a sleepy, dreamy smile, thinking about Hitomi's upcoming birthday. It was in three months, but he could never have enough time to get everything he wanted for her. He was going to spoil her rotten, and their child. No, children. If what Hitomi said was true, then they were going to have two little kids running around and creating havoc, right along with him. He wanted little girls, two little adorable girls that he could spoil just like their mama. He wondered how big their family would be. If he knew Hitomi and how much she loved kids, she would want a big one. It didn’t matter. He could afford however many children their love created. His last thought before he drifted off was how much he wanted to hold his wife right then and tell her that he loved her.

 ******************

Hitomi jerked up out of bed, sweat drenching her body. She searched her surroundings, and didn’t recognize it as Van's room. She panicked and got frantic, realizing Van wasn’t there with her, like he always was. She saw a lump besides her and realized it was Merle. That fact didn’t calm her any though, it just made her panic more and get confused. She crawled out of bed as quietly as she could and left the room. The memory of the vision she just had made her start running in the direction of Van's room. She just had the feeling he would be there.

She wrenched open their door and slammed it shut. She saw Van lying on the bed cuddling a pillow. She didn’t even hesitate to jump onto the bed and scrambled across it to get to him. She ripped the pillow out of his arms and his eyes shot open. He didn’t have any idea what was going on, all he knew was that he was being attacked. He sat up and his vision cleared. He blinked a few times and he saw the most horrifying Hitomi he had ever seen. He didn’t even hesitate to open his arms, and she tumbled into them. She didn’t cry, she just gripped onto his shirt like a lifeline. Van laid back down with his wife in his arms and tried to get his still half asleep mind to wake up.

Hitomi didn’t say anything, she just tried to get closer to him. Her stomach was getting in the way, and it made Van smile. She seemed upset and frantic, and she was trying to cover every inch of his body in an attempt to get closer to him, and when she started crying when she couldn’t, Van grabbed her arms and locked them behind his back. Next he grabbed her legs and wrapped them around his upper legs, for she couldn’t get them much higher because of her stomach. It seemed to help some now that she was closer to him, but instead of burying her face in his hair like she always did, she hid it in his chest. He rubbed his hands up and down her back as she squeezed him as hard as she could with her arms and legs. It was like she was trying to hide herself inside of his body, like she was trying to get away from something that was scaring her.

"Hitomi, what wrong?" He didn’t ask why she was nearly attacking him, and just continued holding her. He smiled, for he had never been in such a smashed embrace.

"Vision," she whispered. "Horrible."

Oh, no, Van thought. "Do you want to tell me?"

"No."

Alright. Apparently it had scared her shitless. Even if they scared her to death, she would tell him. "Should I know about it? Does it have anything to do with Gaea or its future?"

"No. Let me think for a minute. I'll tell you in a little bit. Just not right now."

Van nodded and continued rubbing her back. He caught his hands wandering places after a minute without him even realizing it and he forced them to stay on her back.

"It was Yukari. And Amano. They die."

"How? Why? When?"

"A plane crash. The engine catches on fire. I don’t know when. Soon."

Plane? What was that? "Hitomi, is a plane something that flies?"

"Yes. It's just like a floating fortress, except it doesn’t use rocks, and its faster." Hitomi didn’t want to get complicated, or he wouldn’t understand at all. All he needed to know was that they flew.

"And you don’t know when? What can we do?"

"Nothing. We can't leave Gaea. Anything could happen if we leave."

Van felt horrible. Her friends, his friends, were in trouble, and they couldn’t do anything to save them. Nothing.

"Why don’t we wait a while and see if you have anymore? Maybe they won't die, maybe it was a dream," Van reassured.

"No. I can tell the difference between dreams and visions," Hitomi told him. She felt him sigh and closed her eyes, trying to block out the scenes that repeated themselves over and over again. The plane was flying, and then they started having difficulties. Parachutes were given to the people, but there wasn’t enough, or they were too late. Hitomi didn’t know which. All she saw was red when the plane smashed into the ocean, making the plane explode into a zillion pieces, and sink to the bottom of the ocean, along with Yukari and Amano.

What were they doing on the plane anyhow? And why were they flying over the ocean? Were they going to America? Or going on a vacation somewhere? She remembered how Amano said he wanted to get a job over in America, but she had doubted he ever would. She hoped that she could save them, but she didn’t know how she would, when she was stuck on Gaea.

She thought that Van had fallen asleep and she let her legs slip away from his sides for they had cramps in them. She lifted herself up and looked down at him. She smiled when she saw him wide-eyed and awake. "Sometimes I bet we confuse each other."

"Sometimes? Woman, you are confusion. Sometimes I feel like my brain has fried from over-exertion from trying to be not confused from you." He laughed. "What the heck, I confuse myself."

Hitomi laughed along with him. It lightened the heavy air of a moment ago, and she felt a weight lifted from her shoulders, although the vision still stayed with her. "Lets get up and do something so we don’t fall asleep again. Today is a lazy day and we need to make it not be one."

"But don’t we owe each other something?"

Hitomi cocked her head to the side, not understanding. Van started for her. "Van, I'm sorry...?"

"Oh! Yes, Van, I'm sorry. More than anything in this world, sorry. I shouldn’t have said that to you. You're just a weird man, I can't help it if you seem to be turned on by me when I feel, and look this fat."

"I'm not going to apologize if you call yourself fat one more time."

"Sorry."

Van smiled and giving her a small kiss, said, "I'm sorry too. I overreacted to your words, and you being the hormonal woman you are, and with all your constant attitude fluctuations, I get even more confused by your womanly wiles."

"Really? That’s good. Now, I don’t really want to go outside, so lets find some other entertainment. There isn't much left of this day, maybe four or five hours."

Van climbed out of the bed and got his first real look at Hitomi. "Good gods, get out of that and brush your hair!!"

"Why? Don’t you like it? I had a few people scared out of their wits, including Allen."

Van shook his head, trying to understand her weird sense of humor. "Alright, but get dressed. And since you don’t like to brush your hair, I will."

Hitomi smiled and slid over to the side of the bed, hopping off and running into her room. A few moments later she came back with a dark blue dress on and a brush in her hand. Van had a heck of a time brushing out all the knots and tangles, but he was patient with it, unlike how Hitomi yanked them out and made her eyes water.

They left when she was fixed up, and people actually remembered who she was. Hitomi told Van about what she had done and how much she had scared the servants. He just shook his head.

When they couldn’t find anything to do, they went to the study, where they both picked up the books they were reading and sat down on the leather sofa. Hitomi ended up laying her head in his lap and all Van could do was smile his face off as he read.

Hitomi finished her book, and she looked all teary-eyed. She sat up and complained, "That had to be the saddest thing I ever read!!"

Van didn’t take his eyes off his; he was too engulfed. Hitomi got off the sofa and went over to the giant shelves holding the thousands of books. Most of them were newer, since all of the old ones had been replaced from the fire. Hitomi pulled out one and read a few pages to see if she would like it. She got a disgusted look on her face and put it back. She took out another one and knew she was going to love it just by the red and gold leather cover. She didn’t even bother to review it and went back to her position on Van's lap. He didn’t even notice it.

Hitomi instantly loved the book. It was a book of fairy tails, but for much older people, like her. One fourth of the book itself was one story. She finished the first one with a smile on her face because of the happy ending. She put it down for a minute to study Van, who was still reading and turning the pages. From how fast her was turning them, he was either really into it, or a fast reader. Probably both.

She got a wicked smile on her face and started running her fingers up his side. He didn’t even heed it until she got to his ear and yanked on it. He blinked a few times and then looked down at her, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. "Yes?"

"Oh, nothing. Just trying to bother you."

Van brought his book back up to its original place, saying, "This book is so different. It has the bad guys constantly winning, and as far as I can tell, they are going to win. Maybe after you're done reading that, you can read this. I think you'll enjoy all of the mixture of killing and romance."

"Romance? You're reading romance?" Hitomi started laughing and rolled over to her side, her book falling onto the soft carpet. She couldn’t seem to stop laughing, and she had tears come to her eyes. Van was just staring at her, wondering if she was ok. When she calmed, she took a deep breath, closing her eyes. "You really need to stop making me laugh so hard. It's starting to hurt too much."

"It's not my fault everything I do and say seems so funny," Van said calmly and set his book down on her stomach. He seemed to think that it was funny that he could set almost anything on her belly, and was always exploiting it and making himself smile and laugh. He suddenly seemed more interested with her facial features more than his book, and began tracing the contours of her face. She closed her eyes and tried to hold back a yawn, but it wasn’t very successful. "Are you tired?"

Hitomi wanted to deny it, but Van could tell that she was. She dozed off in mid-sentence, and Van smiled, picking her up to carry her up to their room. She didn’t stir once, and the soldiers standing at their double doors had to smile. They had been given quite a show of their highness carrying his wife up to his room the past few nights, considering she fell asleep more downstairs than in their room. Van nodded to them, telling them goodnight and to keep their eyes open, as he always did. They bowed their heads and Van walked in, bringing his wife to the bed and laying beside her, falling asleep in his clothes.

 ******************

It was the next day, mid-afternoon when Van was wandering around the palace himself, making inspections. He caught his mother looking longingly out a window that showed the palace gardens below it. He didn’t say anything, he just studied her a moment before he walked up to her and set his hand on her shoulder. She didn’t jump or get startled in surprise, she just continued gazing out of the window. "Van, did I ever tell you what happened after I left to look for Folken?"

Van swallowed, instantly wary of the subject his mother was breaching. "No. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to."

She motioned for him to sit beside her on the window seat, and he obliged her unwillingly. Varie studied him a moment, assessing and measuring, taking into account the things that reminded her of Gaou or of herself. He looked so much like his father that sometimes she would almost call Van her deceased husband's name and expect him to come over and kiss her, like he was still alive. Just thinking of her husband made tears come to her eyes, and she blinked them back furiously. Van was sitting patiently, still scared about what she was going to say.

"Van, my son, you have no reason to be fearful of what I'm about to say. It will just make you understand things more. There isn't anything disturbing in it, or at least I don’t think so. I just think it's appropriate that I tell you this, since I told Hitomi and Merle."

Van nodded his head and looked down at his hands resting in his lap, clasped together so hard they were white. He loosened his grip and the blood started flowing again. He looked out the window and inspected the snow-covered trees, bushes, and the frozen water fountain. He took comfort in the dismal surroundings for some reason. They reminded him of something, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

"It starts when your brother left for the Rite of Succession, you know, slaying the dragon. When Folken never came back, it was assumed that he had been killed by the creature, but I didn’t think so. I knew so. I left without telling anyone, and everyone accepted that I had gone off and killed myself or got killed trying to find Folken. Balgus never found me, so that's what everyone assumed. However, that isn't so."

Van looked up from the window and stared at his mother. He waited for her to keep talking, his body tense.

"I found him, Van."

Van blinked. "Found who?"

"I found your brother, I found Folken."

Van gripped the windowsill. "You did?" he whispered.

"Yes. I had been walking through the distant forest that your brother was planning on going to, and had heard some noises. It had sounded like a struggle. I started running, hope flaring inside me. I hid behind some bushes and shrubs and watched...watched it all." She choked on the last words. She lowered her face into her hands, trying to hold back the hurt and rage.

"What did you see, mother?" Van asked quietly, resting his hand on her shoulder for consolation. She sniffed and raised her head.

"Folken." She paused, whispering, "My poor baby." Van tightened his hold on her shoulder and urged her silently to continue some more. "He had been bleeding to death in the middle of the forest, his arm completely torn off. I had cried out and went to run to him, but there were men coming. I hid as best I could in the bushes, but I had the feeling they would see me. They came and started to help Folken, and I had almost gone out to thank them, but they did something to him. I still don’t know what they did." She looked down at her hands, they suddenly looked old. "They injected him with something, and he started convulsing, his body jerking and shaking uncontrollably. It was so horrible, I thought he was going to die from it. Finally, it stopped, and you should have seen me, Van," she said with a little laugh. "I was so pathetic."

Van gave her a confused look and she gave another small laugh. "I don’t even know why I did it, but before I had left Fanelia, I had brought some weapons, one of them, a sword. I ran out and started attacking those men."

"What? Are you serious?" Van asked, his mouth gaping open. Never in his life would have thought his beautiful mother would have attacked people, let alone men that were armed and dangerous.

"I don’t know how many I killed, but they got a hold of me and I couldn’t get out of their grasp, no matter what I did. All I could do was think of Folken. I would have willingly given my life to save him, but they wouldn’t heed one word I said."

"You killed some of those men, mother?"

Varie nodded, still looking down at her hands. "At the time, I though it had been necessary. I still do. Maybe if I would have done something different, maybe murdered a different man before another, I would have saved him."

"Mom, you...surprise me," Van said with a small smile, trying to make his mother understand that sometimes certain things were necessary.

"You probably hate me now," Varie declared and looked away.

Van pulled her back. "No, I could never hate you. If you killed those men with a right and just purpose, then I could never get mad or hate you. You should know that, mother."

Varie sighed and went on. "After they stopped the bleeding, they tried to get me under control, which they never accomplished," she said with a smile. "No matter what they did, they couldn’t. They even tied me and stuffed a gag in my mouth. I could still scream and kick. Stupid men." She stopped, saying, "No offense, dear."

Van smiled and shook his head, amused. Even in the most grimmest times, his mother could cheer him up.

"They had guymelefs, ones sort of like the Alseides, but an earlier version. They didn’t have the liquid metal, or the stealth cloaks. Well anyhow, they took Folken up in one of the melef's hands and then went to take me. I don’t know how I did it, but I got free from my bonds and took to the sky. I had never flown so fast in my life; I never had a reason to. They all got into their guymelefs and went after me. They couldn’t maneuver as fast as me, idiotic men. No matter how hard they tried to get me, they couldn’t. In the end they gave up, but they were so dumb, they didn’t even know I had latched onto the back of one of the melef's."

"You did a stunt that dangerous?"

"Of course. If I fell, I had wings. I wouldn’t die. It took almost a day to get to Zaibach, and by then I had fallen asleep. Folken was still passed out. They captured me, again, and when I was asleep, I guess one of those deep sleeps that you don’t feel anything. That or they drugged me like Folken, I don’t know. Over the next few days, I was kept in a cell, until this odd boy came in. He had this whitish silver hair, and the most bizarre purple eyes. He visited me everyday, talking for a few hours about nothing. He said that I reminded him of someone, but he couldn’t place it."

His mother had reminded Celena, turned into Dilandau of his and Allen's own mother? So even then the fate alteration they had done to Dilandau hadn't worked very well, Van thought.

"I don’t know if they had done it on purpose just to torture me, or just because it was convenient, but they put me next to some chamber, the chamber Folken had been in. I would see them carry him in and out of that room, something different gone or added on every time. I had been horrified the day they carried him in with no arm, and carried him out with this mechanical disgusting thing that made me want to throw up the little food they had fed me. Blood and gore had been oozing out from where the mechanical arm and his skin met. He looked so pale, and most of the time he was awake, but like in another world. He would stare at me when they carried him away, like he recognized me. I tried one time to touch him, and he had reached out to me. The look in his eyes," she said quietly, "is something I will never forget. The tears, the acceptance. An odd combination."

"Acceptance? He went willing?"

"I don’t know, Van. I doubt we will ever know. He might say that he had, but we don’t know if they drugged him. We will never know for sure, or at least I don’t think we will."

Van looked down at the ground, his stare grinding into the carpet. His hands fisted and he closed his eyes, holding back the tears that came to them. Had he gone willingly? Or had they drugged him? He prayed that they had, that although his brother had said that he had went willingly, that they had drugged him and he hadn't gone willingly, only thought that he had.

"After a few weeks, I don’t know how many, for I couldn’t tell the days apart, Folken...was finished. Except he...he wasn’t my baby, he was some other person, some other person using his body. He came and visited me."

"He visited you? What happened?"

"He had this black and purple cape on, and he seemed to constantly have his mechanical arm covered. The guards seemed to worship him nearly, they bowed, scraped, groveled. He was so indifferent to it all, like it had been that way his whole life. The first thing he said to me was, 'hello, mother'. I thought he was going to kill me or something, but he didn’t. He sat me down and explained some things to me. He said that I was a threat, a threat to the Zaibach Empire, and that I had to be eliminated, terminated. I kept begging him to stop acting the way he was, but he didn’t seem to care. He asked if I was going to cooperate, asked if I would join him in the conquest to rule all of Gaea. I refused, of course. He didn’t seem mad, he seemed accepting, almost grateful. He was constantly trying to hide his feelings, but I could see the all but longing look in his eyes, a look that asked me to save him."

"That’s proof right there that he didn’t go willingly!! He couldn’t have!!" Van shouted, relief apparent on his face.

"But," Varie said, lying her hand on his arm. "After a month he wiped it clear off his face. The only thing that would ever appear on that rock was an evil, sinister smile that I came to hate. Everyday he would ask me if I would join him, the words becoming more genuine each of those days. He told me this was what he was living for, what he had longed for, what he wanted more than anything. Finally, I screamed at him, saying I would never join him in the stupid conquest to rule all of Gaea. He immediately had the guards seize me, and they took me to this giant chamber, all of this high-tech looking stuff in it. All of a sudden this very old man, Dornkirk, came up on an enormous screen. He said that I would stop his plan in his picture of his ideal future or some such junk. He said that he would get rid of me, put me somewhere that I would never be able to help Gaea."

Van didn’t understand how she would stop his plan, but he kept listening.

"He sent me to Earth. But he was wrong about me not being able to help. Do you remember when I appeared in the Mystic Valley? Well, that was help. I think that I had gone into some far recess of my mind when I had been sleeping, and at first I had thought I had been dreaming, but I hadn't."

"You spent all those years on Earth? All by yourself as a homeless person? Oh, gods." Van wrapped his arms around her shoulders and he hugged her, not to comfort her but to comfort himself. Fifteen years. How could she still be alive?

Varie smiled, trying to make him understand. "Yes, but I'm fine. I'm stronger than I look, although sometimes I don’t act like it. The whole time I was on Earth, I was starving, filthy, confused. I didn’t know where I was, no one spoke my language. I didn’t know what to do. Finally, I figured out from the other homeless people that they got their food from these giant garbage holder things, and I think I was eating other people's food that they had thrown away. If you've ever noticed that I always eat all my food, it's because its such a waste when you don’t. When you think of all those homeless people that don’t even have food, it makes you more grateful."

Van licked his lips, and started chewing on his lower lip. Why had Allen and him been able to comprehend the language on Earth? When he had first gone there, to slay that dragon, he hadn't been able to understand anyone else's language except Hitomi's. Why had Allen and him been able to understand four years later? He shook his head, not caring. If he had been able to understand it, then he had. He wondered why he hadn't noticed this until now. "How did you find us when we went to Earth?"

"A vision."

"A vision? You mean like the ones Hitomi has?"

"Yes. I used to get them when I was a little girl, but they stopped when I got older. I thought I lost them permanently, but apparently I hadn't. I guess that’s a good thing," she said with a smile.

"Thank you, for telling me this," Van said to his mother. "I guess I never thought that your story would have...so much hope in it. I have a lot of things to think about now, so you'll have to excuse me." At that he kissed her smooth white cheek and left her side, going to his room, where undoubtedly his wife would be. He couldn’t wait to see her and tell her how happy he was. Now that he knew that Folken might have been drugged, he had something inside him settle.

He got to his room, and found her, as she normally was, in front of the fireplace in the rocking chair, reading a book. He kissed her ear as he passed her and she gave him a loving smile. "Yes?"

"My mother just told me her story."

"About time," Hitomi said, setting her book down on her lap. She wouldn’t give Van the amusement of laying it on her stomach. "So? Was it what you expected?"

"Not at all. I was so surprised to hear the things she told me."

"Yes, it was hard for me not to start talking to you about it, considering she hadn't told you yet. She has only told us three, and I think she wants it to be kept a secret. I haven't told anyone, but at least I can talk to you about it."

"There isn't much to talk about, just that there is some hope that Folken had been drugged into doing this, and he had thought that he had gone into this willingly. I hope that he was. It makes me feel better about so many things, it just seems like a weight was lifted off my shoulders, that I became so relaxed afterwards that I could have just started dancing. Shall we?"

Hitomi blinked a few times, and then stood, taking his hand. He bowed over hers and she curtsied as much as she could, laughing as she did so. He started leading her around the room, swirling her around in wide circles as she held up her dress so she wouldn’t trip on it. They were smiling and laughing, having a wonderful time. He dipped her low, her hair grazing the ground. She smiled up at him and he picked her up, whirling her around again and then bringing her back. She loved the feeling of being thrown into graceful, trusting circles, only to be brought back into loving strong arms. Being swirled around made her feel weightless for only a few seconds, and it felt like she was riding some sort of roller-coaster. She felt wonderfully lightheaded and dizzy with delight.

They were still laughing and smiling when there was a knock on the door that went unnoticed. Allen walked in, only to stop at the scene of happiness. Merle, whom he was carrying in his arms, was grinning her face off. "I wish we could start dancing like that right now. Too bad I have to wait so long to actually be able to do something not stressful, which is everything in the world."

Allen carried her over to the bed and laid her down carefully. She sighed and collapsed against the pillows that he fluffed up behind her back. By then Van and Hitomi had noticed them, and Van ended the dance, bowing and kissing her hand. Hitomi touched her hand to her chest, fluttering her long eyelashes dramatically. Van smiled and Merle started clapping, much enjoying the show.

"So, how dare you cometh into this here humble room and disturb my pleasures?" Hitomi said, acting more dramatic than she already was. Merle couldn’t stop laughing, and she was holding her stomach, begging Hitomi to stop her flaunting. She was walking around the room ridiculously, making odd and sometimes weird gestures with her hands, that had Merle bursting with laughter. Van's poor face flamed and turned pure red when she made a somewhat very suggestive sign, and then Allen started laughing. Merle covered her face with a pillow so she wouldn’t see, but then she ended up peaking around it.

When Hitomi herself started laughing, she had to stop messing around. Sometimes they had to have fun, even if it was because she was making a fool of herself. If they enjoyed it, then it was well worth it. Merle asked her to come over and sit beside her, while Van tried to act like he didn’t know her. Allen just stared laughing again at the attempts he was making at it, and went beside him to start talking about what Hitomi called, "manly stuff".

"So, how are you, Merle?" Hitomi asked, sitting beside her on the bed. Merle waved her hand, sighing. "Just tired and weak, but Nara said I'll get over it in a couple days. She said I can start walking around tomorrow, or if I don’t feel like it, whenever I want, but just not today. I can't wait to be back on my feet again."

"How is Aleta? She has to be the most adorable baby girl I have ever seen," Hitomi asserted calmly.

Merle smiled, thanking her with a small blush. "I guess I couldn’t have done it without Allen," she giggled. "You should hear all the compliments that have been rained down upon my head. But enough of me, everyone is always asking about me and the baby. How are you?"

"I'm fine, I seem to be getting more tired lately. No big deal. But," she whispered, "I have something to tell you."

Merle leaned closer, immediately interested.

"I am going to have twins."

"What?!" Merle shouted, her silence of a moment ago instantly gone. Allen jerked away from Van and ran over, at once asking if she was ok. She shooed him away, but he wouldn’t budge. Van came over next to him and asked what was wrong, practically demanding.

"Hitomi! When did you find this out?! Why didn’t you tell anyone?! Does Van know?!"

"Of course. But since you are screaming, I guess it's not much of a secret anymore," Hitomi said, annoyed. Merle got all excited, a complete difference from a moment ago.

"Oh, Hitomi, that’s going to be wonderful!! Could you imagine? Having two little things running around that could look like you or Van? Are they going to look the same? Do you know?"

Allen looked utterly confused. "What the heck is going on?"

Van, finally understanding what they were talking about, said, "Hitomi and I are going to have twins."

"Twins? Are you sure? But isn't that bad?"

Van shrugged, not knowing. He still had to talk to Nara about all this.

Hitomi, trying to answer Merle's questions, said, "I don’t know if they are going to be identical or what. We won't know until they are born."

"Oh."

Hitomi smiled, trying to share Merle's enthusiasm. She didn’t understand why she was so scared, giving birth was natural. She just seemed so frightened by it, though. Van came over next to her, finally accepting that they were married and that they knew each other. He kissed her cheek, understanding her fear.