“You betrayed us!”

Bang!

The young girl stood in the clearing tears in her eyes as the shattered remains of a gold cross lay on the charred grass. The sound of squealing motorcycle tires could be heard in the still night.

“I love you, I love you so much it hurts,” a young man with deep forest green eyes whispered in her ear.

“Midii, come back to me…”

A young man, and two sons stood before her, they were familiar to her, yet their names refused to spill forth from her lips. She watched as crystal tears fell from their eyes as she struggled to remember them, and refused to enter their embrace.

A tall man, with chestnut hair, and longing deep emerald colored eyes stood watching her from the doorway a bouquet of roses in his hands and a smile lingering on his lips. “Come to me,” he whispered, and his hand brushed her forehead.

“Still afraid of the dark Trowa,” she heard her voice ask as she pulled from his stifling embrace in the dark room. The moonlight providing little illumination, as she felt his lips brush against the back of her neck.

“I wonder why it is you fear to let go?” She asked again.

“I fear to lose you,” was the simple answer, as her giggles echoed throughout the room as his arms wound themselves tighter around her slim waist.

“Damien! Christof! Put me down!”

“If you wish, sister,” the young men grinned as she found herself submerged in water…

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Ariane sputtered as she blinding flailed her arms about her as she opened her eyes to see a familiar pair of forest green eyes.

“Nanashi,” she whispered, as she struggled to stand.

“Stay put, you fainted,” Trowa said in monotone, as he gently caressed her wet skin, his nimble fingers brushing the damp strands of platinum hair from her angelic face.

“Why would you care,” she bit back, and immediately regretted her words as she saw the pained look flash across his face. “I’m still piecing things together, I’m sorry,” she whispered with her head hung in shame.

“Your memory?”

“Yes, I see these people in my mind, people I can’t remember seeing, yet they seem familiar to me. There were so many voices, so many people, calling to me. Asking me to come back. You were there, I think,” she said softly holding her head in her hands as the pain of remembering began to overwhelm her. “So many voices…”

“Midii!” Trowa called terror seeping into his veins as he pulled her closer to him, rocking her back and forth, as he crooned in her ear. “Sally! Please hurry,” Trowa called, his voice hoarse with worry.

“I’m busy stemming the blood flow from Wufei’s nose, in case you needed a refresher,” Sally’s voice carried through the apartment, to Trowa’s anxious form.

“Sally, it’s Midii,” Trowa repeated, the young woman in his arms shaking uncontrollably as once more the memories asserted their grip on her mind, calling her back to the darkness, to the well of memories which had once more been tapped.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sally jerked back to reality at Trowa’s desperate tone. She glanced apologetically at the Chinese man who had surrendered himself to her ministrations, and she sighed softly.

“Lean back and keep pressure on your nose,” she said softly before rising form her crouched position, her bones protesting the sudden movement.

“Yes, Doctor,” was the muttered reply. Wufei’s once silken voice, grating against her delicate senses. “And Sally?”

“Yes Wufei?”

“We need to talk, about things,” Wufei said softly, reaching a hand out to gently squeeze her own, which were stained with his blood.

“Yes we do, we most certainly do Wufei,” Sally said softly, leaning down to brush her lips against his forehead.

“I’m coming Trowa,” Sally called in response, her mind returning to a clinical mode. She straightened her back, brushing her short black hair behind her ears as her hands nervously brushed imaginary dirt from her casual attire. “I won’t fail you this time.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“You’re a failure, can’t you ever get a mission right?” An uniformed soldier screamed at a cowering girl, one of his hands fisted in her golden mane. “Do you want your family to live?” He asked, not caring that he was terrifying the young spy, and that his harsh grip on her hair was bringing tears to her eyes.

“Please, I won’t fail you again,” the young girl whispered, her voice hard as she gazed evenly at the soldier, her mind refusing to let her terror control her.

“You fail us again, and there won’t be a next time…”

“My name is Nikita, I’m a doctor,” a voice said from the darkness to the young woman as she huddled in a dark corner.

“And?” Came an icy voice as the young woman struggled to stand, fighting against the pain.

“And I’d like to help,” the voice said as the speak stepped from the shadows, revealing the figure of a woman, with long honeyed hair, and deep blue eyes.

“Why?”

“Because you look like you need a friend,” the voice, named Nikita, said again, stepping closer to the young woman’s proud and injured form.

“Why?”

“I need a friend as well,” Nikita replied softly earning a slight smile from the younger woman.

“He’s my brother,” the voice said simply.

“Brother?”

“Yes, an international spy does have such normal things as family,” the speaker, a young woman replied with a smirk.

“Take it easy,” he scolded gently as she swatted his hand away.

“We should be there soon,” she whispered with a glare, completely ignoring his earlier statement.

“Yes boss,” was his chuckled reply, earning him a punch in the arm. And he squinted as his world shifted in and out of focus and his mind began to whirl. The young woman sighed, as her brother; the young Christof toppled forward, his world going dark as the sedatives began to work.

Pain, she could feel pain, exploding through her body in various places as she watched the man gleefully fire his weapon. She could hear her name being screamed as she fell and fell, her body impacting with the cold water, and being hit against the rocks before her world went dark.

“I finally found you, Midii my dear, and you’re mine now,” she heard a voice she knew whisper in her ear. “You belong to LeFave…”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“She’s asleep,” Sally said as she watched Midii toss and turn on the narrow bed. Small sounds and whimpers echoing throughout the room as she faced her demons. “There’s nothing I can do right now Trowa.”

“You know us all so well,” Trowa whispered in response kneeling down to take Midii’s hand in his own.

“It comes from a lifetime of experience…” Sally trailed off turning back towards the bathroom and the waiting patient.

Trowa only shook his head, every day she threw another curve ball. The woman he had first known as Major Sally Po, and then Preventer Sally Po before she had become Crimson, a woman not to be crossed. And now she was another person, one he had yet to understand.

“You’re an enigma,” he whispered to her retreating back.

“I know,” she quipped, “only Wufei ever glimpsed the entire puzzle, and even then he was baffled.”

“You are a complex puzzle as all women are.”

“We’re puzzle’s? I would have thought something more eloquent would come from you Trowa,” Sally said with a soft chuckle.

“It is the best way to describe it,” the ex-pilot softly replied. “You and Midii are the most complex women I have ever met. You hide what you truly are from the world, showing one face while developing another layer to the shell which protects you.”

“How insightful of you, but do you believe your words?”

“Yes, I do…” Trowa sighed, pausing, his mind riffling through discussions of old, seeking for the correct path to take. “To a degree. Midii has always protected herself from pain, I have only ever seen her true to herself a number of times. You I have never seen true to herself, other than when you are helping others, it gives you a purpose in life.”

“I’m afraid you are mistaken, that is but the tip of the ice-berg, for both myself and Midii,” Sally responded softly moving away from Trowa and disappearing into the safety of the bathroom.

“I don’t think I am,” Trowa whispered to the empty room.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

~ To Be Continued…