Disclaimer: Gundam Wing is owned by Sunrise.

Hilde Interrupted

by Polka Dot

“My name is Relena Peacecraft.” She said right before the bullet hit her head and shattered it like a cantolope.

Hilde shook her head. That was wrong. It hadn’t happened like that. Relena Peacecraft was still alive. She didn’t die on Libra.

No wait. That was wrong. There weren’t any Peacecrafts anymore. The Sanq Kingdom was part of the Mediterranean conglomerate. Wasn’t it?

Well it didn’t matter. That wasn’t what she needed to focus on. She was on L2 or L1. She wasn’t sure. She thought that she had been transferred at one point, but couldn’t say for sure. Duo had told her…What was it he said?

‘The facilities here are full of ex-soliders. They’ve helped other women just like you. It’ll be better here and I’ll come to visit you as often as I can. It’s for the best babe. I promise. I just want you to get better.’

Yes that was it. Or the gist of it. It didn’t really matter, did it? He had sent her away. Away from him to this place, to get better. But she wasn’t better, she wasn’t getting any better and they both knew it.

She wanted to cry, but that would bring the orderlies and they would take her to the doctors and then they would want to talk to her and talking always led to more drugs. She didn’t want anymore drugs. She would be okay if they would just stop making her take all those drugs. Then she could think. Not about the war, she was tired of thinking about that. No, she would think about her life with Duo. They were going to have children, maybe move to the earth. That was the plan before…

…before everything fell apart and Duo put her into this place. This hospital. That was…how long ago? Two or three years ago? Maybe five. It could be five. Maybe more, it was so hard to tell time in this place because nothing ever changed here. It was less than ten years, she was sure of that. Yes, it was definitely not that long.

“Duo.” She whimpered as she twirled a lock of hair around her finger. She had grown out her hair, just for him, but then she had cut it again. She had looked in the mirror and she didn’t she herself anymore so she had taken a pair of scissors and cut all of her hair off. That was before this place. When she was still with Duo. She had cut her hair and her ear and stabbed herself in the throat and Duo had come home to find her sobbing on the bathroom floor covered with her own hair and blood.

But it had grown back out since then. It was long again. She wanted him to come and see it. She knew he would like it. If he saw it and liked it, maybe he would take her home and she could leave. She wanted out of this place. She wanted to be back with Duo. Didn’t he want her home?

“Duo I want to come home.”

“I want you home too. I love you Hilde. It kills me to see you here, but you know you can’t come home. Not until you stop these suicide attempts.” Duo’s eyes were so big and full of pain.

“But Duo it was an accident.”

“Hilde…” His tone was scolding.

“I was cutting my hair and the scissors slipped.”

“Stop it Hilde. That wasn’t a slip.” Duo was getting angry. She wasn’t going to get any better if she kept denying the truth.

“No really Duo…”

“Hilde it wasn’t the first time. I can’t go to work and worry about whether or not you’ll be dead when I get back home. I’m sorry Hilde, but you have to stay until the doctors sign your release.”

“Damnit Duo how can you do this to me? I knew you were lying when you said you loved me. You never loved me! How can you love me and then lock me away like a criminal?” She shouldn’t have shouted.

“Hilde you know that’s not true. You’re my wife. I hate seeing you here like this, but you won’t even admit that you have a problem. I listened to you cry at night, holding you and thinking it would go away. I told the doctors they were wrong when you ODed on aspirin and booze. I believed you when you said the cuts on your arm were from a fall in the scrap yard. I  blamed PMS when you smashed every window, mirror and picture frame in the house. I can’t do this anymore Hilde. I can’t watch you kill yourself. Please Hilde, please talk to the doctors. Let them help you. I can’t. I tried, but I can’t. I’m sorry.” Duo was sobbing again. That was the signal for the orderlies to take her away. Visit over, see you again in another month. Damnit.

“Duo don’t let them take me away again. It’s horrible here! Please Duo, don’t leave me. You promised. You promised we would be together forever! Duuoooooo!” She screamed as they dragged her away. He just sobbed harder and watched them take her away.

That was not the last time, but it was like the last time and it felt so long ago. He hadn’t come for awhile. He would always have some reason why, but it wasn’t the real reason. She knew, she knew he didn’t want to see her anymore. She wondered if he was ever coming back. Maybe he had met someone else and decided to just leave her here forever.

“Duo.” 

It wasn’t cold, but she was curled on the bed shivering anyway. Her pajamas were his. They used to share them, just like the married couples on tv. She would take the tops and he would take the bottoms. But he had given her the bottoms for some reason. At least they were in her suitcase along with all the other clothes he packed for her. She was on the bed for almost two days when she first got here. She had wet herself in her reluctance to move. After that the orderlies escorted her to the bathroom every four hours like clockwork.  After she had been  there awhile and began to talk with the other women she found out that the when you wet your bed twice, then they escorted you into the bathroom and made sure you did something.

That wasn’t why she was shivering though. She was remembering. Not the war. There were worse things than the war. She didn’t want to remember but it came upon her sometimes. Like a fit of allergies. It took control and crippled her. The war had kept it at bay, sort of. It was a distraction for her. That was why she wasn’t getting any better. This place and all the people here thought that she was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder brought on by the war, but that wasn’t true. She knew she needed to be honest with them to tell them the truth, but it was so hard. She had tried once with the therapist, but she couldn’t get the words out.  Somehow she ended up hundled on the floor in complete incoherency.

Not again. She was going to get out of here. She was, she had to. She was going to get off the bed, get dressed and walk out of this room, find a doctor, dump her entire life story into their lap and let them heal her. Yes that was what she was going to do.

It didn’t happen. She thought about it and shivered even more. She shivered so badly that she turned her lower lip into meat and when the orderlies came and saw the blood on the bed, they dragged her away. The nurse fixed up her lip and gave her some sedatives that put her to sleep and fogged up her brain. She forgot all about her dark memories and her firm resolve.

When she woke up the next day she got up and got showered just like she was supposed to. It felt good to get all the dirt off. Well as much of it as she could. She always felt dirty, but it had been four days since she had showered or changed out of her pajamas. Doing the little things that everybody else did, that she was expected to do made her feel normal. She was chatty at breakfast, talking with the other girls about hair and nail polish. She missed Duo but resolved that she wasn’t going to cry about it.

She watched tv and painted what she considered a fairly decent bunny. She had no artistic talent but enjoyed painting nonetheless. Some of the other patients painted scenes filled with blood and gore. The doctors were always so praiseworthy of them, saying that they were expressing their inner turmoil and thus expunging it. She didn’t care if they thought her paintings were unexpressive, she liked them and she didn’t want to paint ugly pictures. She wanted to surround herself with happy images. Maybe if she could put enough happy images in her brain, she could push all the ugly images out.

They were strong, she had to admit. Much stronger than the orderlies at the other hospital. It took them less than five minutes to strap her down. Next came the sedatives. Always more sedatives. It didn’t matter if they put her to sleep now. She couldn’t scream anymore. Her throat was hoarse. The tears didn’t stop though and soon she was gulping in air to try to level out her breathing.

“Please please please please please please…” She chanted. They never showed her any pity. She couldn’t sleep like this. Not tonight.

“God please no.” Her nose was running making an unbearable itch. She focused on it. Tried to close her eyes to the night, but couldn’t get the image out of her mind. That picture of the stars and the full moon and then the feel of suffocating. Dirt in her mouth and her arms screaming in pain. Her mouth wouldn’t open though when she tried to scream. Pain ripping through her as she managed to reach up an arm to the sky and then that face came into view.

“Nnnnooooooooo!”

“Hilde. Hilde!” She opened her eyes.

“Duo?”

His violet eyes were wide with concern and compassion. “You okay babe?”

She nodded and he looked relieved.

“That must’ve been some nightmare, you wanna talk about it?” His smile was playful but his tone was gentle.

“No, I mean I can’t…That is I don’t remember it.” Hilde  looked confused. A minute ago it was so real and now it was gone.

“Really?” He didn’t sound sure. “Gone so soon, well since you’re awake you wanna make me breakfast?” He grinned that grin that always got him exactly what he wanted.

“Yeah sure, why not? Eggs okay?”

“That’d be great. Thanks Hilde.” Duo said as he scrambled out of bed and into the bathroom. Duo slammed the door behind him and Hilde’s eyes shot wide open. She tried to sit up but the leather straps held her arms at her side.

“I hope you’re feeling better this morning.” The head nurse said.

“I am. I’m sorry about last night. Can I go to the bathroom please.” Hilde asked.

The nurse frowned. “Now Hilde, you know the rules. Tami will be here in a minute to escort you. Do you want to take a bath this morning?”

Hilde shook her head. She was going to be under 24 hour watch thanks to last night’s episode. She couldn’t stand bathing in front of the nurse. Tami always told her not to worry about it. That she had seen it all and nothing Hilde showed her was going to faze her. In fact Hilde had shared a communal bath/shower when she was housed in OZ’s barracks, but  the few times that she had had to bath with Tami sitting on a chair watching her were unpleasant to say the least. 

“Were you raped?”

It was a fair question, most of the women here were. Military life is never easy especially for the ‘weaker sex’. Hilde hadn’t been with OZ long, but still she had been harassed by the male soldiers. It never got out of control though. She had been lucky in that respect.

“No.”

 “I was. It’s not the end of the world. I mean they act like it’s a cure all here. You tell them you were raped and that now you can’t trust any man any where and they tell you you’re cured and let you go. Anyway I’m going to be released soon, but I never should’ve been here for so long. I just couldn’t get over the war being over and all that fighting we did and no one accepting it, you know? It’s like the people don’t get that we were fighting for them. We fought for this peace and they act like the peace is a result of us not fighting anymore. It used to make me so mad, but I realized that I had to let go of my anger. Honestly, I think watching reruns of Oprah was more therapautic than talking to the quacks here, but they let me out so I’m happy. Anyway if you wanna get out of here then you should tell them that you were raped.”

“I don’t think I can lie about that. I’m not afraid of men. I have a husband, you know.” Hilde looked across the table at the redhead sitting in front of her. She envied her. She wanted out so bad, but if she was truly honest with herself, then she had to admit that she wanted to get well first. She knew she could do it. She could pull herself together if she could just let go of the fear that she was holding inside. 

Her fear was crippling, but it was elusive too. It seemed to drift from her thoughts. Whenever she managed to get her mind around it, understand it, recall it in all its devestating details, that’s when it twisted around on her. Cutting deep into her mind and ripping at her heart, it shattered her coherency and left her exhausted, bleeding and unnerved. She could never put the pieces back together again. She could never tell anyone because she couldn’t make the picture come into focus.

“Don’t worry about that Hilde. That’s my job. Just tell me what you remember, what you’re thinking and I will help put the pieces together. You must realize that you aren’t in this alone. I am here to help you. All that you have to do is tell me what is it you’re so afraid of? What was it that made you hit the CNA? Something scared you. Was it something she said or did? Were you dreaming? Think back to the moment before the CNA entered your room last night. Tell me what was going through your mind.”

Hilde closed her eyes and tried to think back. She was lying in her bed, trying to sleep, but she just wasn’t tired. She could see the moon through her window. It wasn’t quite a full moon, but it was still very bright. It’s luminesence blocked out the other stars. The sky was a deep navy blue and as she focused on the moon she seemed to forget that she was locked away in a hospital. She felt like she was outside. No she remembered when she was outside at night a long time ago. It was summer so she wasn’t cold. She was enjoying the warm summer night and the beautiful sky when something made her wary.

She didn’t know if it was a sound or a smell. Maybe it was something she saw out of the corner of her eye, somehow she knew that danger was nearby. She had to get away. Her eyes darted around her, but all she saw was darkness and shadows. Shadows that flickered and moved. The shadows consumed her and soon she could hide her fear no more.

“Aahhhhhh! No stop! Help, someone help me!” Hilde curled into a little wall and weptuncontrollably. She trembled so much that her teeth chattered. “Help me Duo, please help me.” Her screams became cries and her cries became whimpers.

“Why do you need help Hilde? What’s going on? What do you see?” It was the doctor’s voice calling her back, but Hilde couldn’t locate the sound through her tears. She rocked back and forth on the couch trying to calm herself.

“Hilde please tell me what you remembered. What did you see? Was someone hurting you?”

Hilde didn’t know, she couldn’t remember the rest. In fact she was too scared and she told the doctor so.

“I understand, we can stop for today, but I think we’ve made some real progress. Is there anything I can do to help you Hilde?”

“Duo, I want to see Duo.”

The doctor nodded, but there was a frown on her face. “Your husband is free to come here whenever he chooses and you know that you can call and/or write him.”

“He’s never there when I call. He never writes me back.” Hilde’s mind cleared as she thought about Duo. He didn’t come to see her much anymore and when he did he often seemed nervous and uncomfortable. “He doesn’t want to see me.”

“Hilde do you know how long you’ve been here?”

“Five years.” It was a guess.

“Actually more than that. You’ve been at this facility for 3 and ½ years and you were at the hospital on L2 for over two years. Here at the hospital you are surrounded by people. Your husband has been alone this entire time. I’m sure he has friends where he works, but it must be awfully lonely for him nonetheless. Hilde, I must be honest with you. I’ve worked here a long time and you’re not the first married woman to be placed here. Few marriages are strong enough to withstand such a long separation. I will contact your husband and ask him to come, but if he asks I must tell him the truth. You are still a long way for being released. Duo may not be able to accept this. I want you to be prepared for the worst Hilde.” The doctor stopped there and waited, hoping Hilde caught her meaning and that she didn’t have to spell it out for her.

Hilde wasn’t a fool, she knew exactly what the doctor meant. For weeks she had been dreaming about seeing Duo again, now that he was here she she found it difficult to look him in the face.

“Do you still love me Duo?”

“Are you kidding? Of course I do.” He kissed her on the forehead and rubbed her cheek, but she still wouldn’t turn her face up.

“But you’re lonely without me, aren’t you.”

Duo hesitated, wondering where she was going with this. “Yes, I miss you. How could I not?”

“What do you do when you get lonely?”

“Aahh Hilde what’s this about?” Duo pulled his hand away and looked at her critically.

“We always talk about me Duo, I want to talk about you. Is that okay?”

“Yeah I guess so. But you know me Hilde. I do the same stuff I’ve always done. I came here to see how you were. The doctor called me and said that you had a real breakthrough session, but you stopped in the middle of it because you got scared. She thought that if I was present you might be able to go on.”

“I hope she’s right. I want to get better Duo. I want to get out of here and go home.”

“That’s what I want too, babe.”

“Really? I thought maybe you didn’t want me home. I thought you might already have someone there waiting for you.” Hilde blinked back the tears. She didn’t mean to blurt that out but Duo’s constant fidgetting made her nervous. He was definitely hiding something.

“Huh? Hilde how did you…I mean what makes you say that? I…I’ve always loved you and only you.”

“Duo don’t lie to me. I want to know the truth. Do want out of this marriage?”

“What?! No, no way. I’ll admit, I’ve had a hard time dealing with all of this and I have gotten lonely and I’ve needed company, but I’m not ready to give up on us yet. I don’t care what Wufei says, I know that you are strong and that you’re gonna beat this. I’ll wait Hilde. I’ll wait for you to come home to me. As long as it takes. I promise you that.”

Hilde couldn’t hold back the tears anymore, but they were tears of joy now. “Oh Duo,” she threw herself into his arms, “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to be so mistrustful it’s just that it’s been so long and we used to have such fun together. I don’t want you to be lonely and miserable, but I’d die if I didn’t have you in my life anymore. You’re the only thing that keeps me sane.”

Duo smirked as he rubbed her back. “Well I hate to point this out Hilde, but technically speaking, you aren’t sane.” Hilde tensed. “Not that I mind. I love you just the way you are. Besides, I figure I’ve got a few screws loose up here as well,” Duo tapped his temple, “but they guys in the white coats are just too damn scared of the Great Destroyer to come and get me.”

Hilde laughed a genuine laugh that was absent when she wasn’t with Duo. “I’m sorry that I’m a nutcase. You deserve someone better.”

“Hey, watch what you say. I already got the best, so there isn’t any better and besides I like nutcases. Cashews are the best.” Duo sat back and ruffled her hair. They hadn’t had a lighthearted moment like this in a long time and they both just wanted to enjoy it.

Duo held her hand. “Don’t be scared babe. Memories can’t hurt you and I’ll be here the entire time, I promise.”

Hilde nodded and looked at the doctor. She let out a deep sigh, closed her eyes and focused in on the doctor’s words.

“You’re in a field it’s daytime and the sky above you is pale blue. The grass is soft and green. There are children playing nearby, they’re laughing and you can hear them running around. As you look up a white bird catches your eye. Above you is a flock of birds. They pass back and forth over your head. You focus in on one of them. It rises higher and higher into the sky. The bird becomes smaller until it is just a white dot. That dot becomes brighter and brighter. The sky is dark now and that white dot is a star, hanging in the sky above your head. It’s a warm summer night and the moon is almost full…” Hilde could see the night sky in her mind.

“Do you recognize this place Hilde?” She nodded. “Where are you?”

“I’m in Anna’s back yard. We’re having a slumber party.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m seven.”

“Are you with your friends or are you alone?”

“I’m alone, everyone else is in the tent, but Leslie’s snoring so I came out here.”

“What’s it like there?”

The air was kind of humid, but pleasant nonetheless. She smiled slightly when something darted in the shadows. She saw it from of the corner of her eye. She turned her head but there was nothing there except darkness and more shadows. The shadows moved and she realized she wasn’t alone. Something or someone grabbed her from behind. She tried to scream, but a hand clasped over her mouth. The shadows closed in on her. She was surrounded on all sides.

“Let me go, let me go.”

“It’s okay Hilde, calm down. Focus on my voice. I’m here, Duo’s here.” Hilde felt someone squeeze her hand, but she was still scared. The men, there were three of them, gagged her and put a hood over her head. They tied her arms and legs together and dumped her onto the ground, but it wasn’t the ground. She could tell by the rev of the engine and the motion beneath her that she was in a car, being driven somewhere.

“Who are these men Hilde, do you know them?” Hilde shook her head. They looked so big, but inside she knew that they were just teenagers. They only looked big because she was so small.

“Where did they take you Hilde?”

She could tell when the car stopped. They pulled her out of the back seat and took off the hood and gag, but they didn’t untie her. She looked at their faces, but didn’t recognize any of them. She didn’t know any high school kids and she didn’t live in Anna’s neighborhood.

“What do you want? Let me go.” Hilde was crying. She had never met anyone so scary before.

“We wanna play with you little girl.” One of them reached down and wiped her face with his hand.

“I don’t want to play with you, you’re mean!” Hilde tried to take a swing at him, but with her arms tied together, she could only flail her arms awkwardly.

“Oh she doesn’t want to play with us.” The men laughed at her. “I’m so hurt. You shouldn’t hurt me little girl or I’ll have to hurt you.” One of them reached down and put his hand around her throat. He squeezed it until her eyes began to roll back into her head. When he let go, she fell onto the ground, gasping for air. Someone kicked her.

“Stop it you’ll kill her!”

“Yeah wait until I’m finished with her first.” The owner of the voice took out a knife and began to cut Hilde’s clothes away. He cut her a few times out of carelessness and she whimpered, “stop, please stop,” but that seemed to make them laugh harder.

“We should stop. Look at her. It’s too much.” Someone was sobbing besides her. She felt a little better knowing she wasn’t alone, like before.

“We can’t stop now. She’s suppressed these memories for so long. She must face her past before she can put it behind her. Hilde what happened next? What did the men do to you?”

“Bad things.”

“What bad things?”

“I don’t want to say.”

“Why not? We won’t be mad. We want to help you Hilde. You can tell us anything. Please tell us.”

“They hurt me.”

“How did they hurt you?”

“They hit me and kicked me and called me bad words.”

“Is that all?”

“No.” Hilde shook her head. She didn’t want to tell the rest because she didn’t want to remember it and she didn’t want to have her mother get mad at her.

“Please tell me Hilde. What did they do? How did they hurt you?”

“Please I don’t want to say.”

“Hilde you can say anything to me. Did they make you have sex with them.”

Hilde nodded her head and cried silently.

“Then what happened.”

“They hit me on the head and I fell asleep.” Hilde seemed to regain some of her composure but it didn’t last.

“Where the men still there when you woke up?”

Hilde rocked back and forth on the couch but didn’t answer.

“Hilde tell me what happened when you woke up.” Hilde still didn’t answer. “Did they hurt you again?”

She shook her head. “Then what did they do?”

“I woke up and it was still dark. I could see the moon. It hurt all over and I tried to get up, but the men were still there. They pushed me back down and I started to scream. One of them stuffed something into my mouth so I couldn’t scream anymore.”

“Jesus she’s still alive. I thought she was dead.”

“Well she won’t be for much longer. Give me the knife.”

Hilde felt a terrible pain in her chest. It hurt worse than anything she’d ever felt before. She stopped trying to get up. A couple of the men lifted her up and put in down into a ditch. She didn’t know at first what was going on, but then the weight on her legs got heavier and she felt past the pain in her chest. A clump of dirt hit her in the face. Then another. Soon she was covered in dirt. The men’s voices were gone. In fact everything was silent. It was the deepest quiet she had ever been in. Her chest hurt, but it faded away and then everything was quiet and still.

“Hilde, Hilde can you hear me?”

“D…Duo?”

“Yeah it’s me.” A soft kiss on the cheek made her open her eyes. Duo looked down on her with a cherry red nose and dark black eyelashes that stuck together. A few unshed tears still glittered in his eyes.

“How do you feel Hilde?” Hilde turned her head and looked at the doctor. There was a definite smile there.

“I feel okay. Tired mostly.”

“Well the session lasted for over two hours and you remembered some pretty traumatic stuff. Do you recall what you told us?”

Hilde nodded and lowered her head. She had recalled bits and pieces of it in the past, but never the whole thing before.

She felt a hand under her chin and returned her gaze to Duo’s face. “You did great babe. I’m really proud of you.”

Hilde smiled and blinked back a couple of tears. She was afraid that Duo would be disgusted with her, but one look into his eyes told her the truth. He still loved her.

“So how did you survive?”

“I woke up in the hospital. The nurse told me that a hiker’s dog had dug me up and the hiker had called the paramedics. I was fortunate. The knife missed my heart by two inches. My lung was damaged badly and it had to be removed, but lucky for me I had a spare.” Hilde patted the right side of her chest where her sole lung was.

“Well I am very impressed. You’ve made more progress today then you have in the past three years. I still want to keep you here for a little bit longer, but I think that you are a lot closer to getting out of here Mrs. Maxwell.”

“Thank you.” Duo helped Hilde off of the couch and they walked back to her room together.

“Thank you Duo. I don’t think that I could’ve gotten through this if it wasn’t for you.”

“Hey we’re a team. You help me and I help you. You were always there for me during the war and after it as well. I’m glad that I could be there for you.” Duo leaned over and kissed her. “I’m gonna miss you every day so don’t take forever, okay?”

“I won’t. I can’t believe a month has gone by already. I’m so glad that you stayed.” Hilde squeezed his hand.

“I wish I could stay longer but this is the last of my sick leave. I promise to call though.” Hilde rolled her eyes. “Okay I know that I’m terrible about calling people, but I swear I will call.”

“You’d better, because we need to make plans for when I come home.”

“What plans? I plan on taking you out every day and then keeping you in every night.” Duo winked at her and Hilde couldn’t help but giggle. “Don’t worry about making plans. Just follow the doctor’s orders and answer their questions. You already passed the first evaluation. I haven’t changed things since you left. I’ll just hire a maid service the day you’re released and everything will be exactly like it was before.”

“Except I’ll be sane.”

Duuo frowned mockingly. “Fine you be sane, but I’m not giving up my Friday night naked polka jambories.”

Hilde closed her eyes and sighed. She wondered if she was giving up one looney bin for another. Her eyes shot open when Duo crushed her to him and and then gave her a very long, deep kiss.

“I gotta go, babe. I’ll see you soon though.” Hilde nodded. It was a promise on both their parts. He wouldn’t give up on her and she wouldn’t give in to her past.

“Good-bye.”

Duo turned away. His hair obscured most of his face so that Hilde couldn't see him, but he was crying. It was silent, but she could tell. Seeing him hurt so much made her heart ache. She wanted to comfort him somehow, but in truth she didn't know what was wrong and she was trying. She laid her hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged her off.

"I told you I forgave you Duo. It's not about that. I'm not angry over your affair with Jean. It goes deeper than that."

Duo turned his head sharply. "Then What? What is it? Why are you pushing me away?"

"I just...I don't know. I guess I figured when I got back here from the hospital, everything would be okay, but it isn't okay. Everything is so screwed up. I guess I set my expectations too high." Hilde dropped her head sadly. She knew she had to be honest if they were to have a chance. "Do you remember how things used to be between us Duo? I would wake up in the middle of the night and you would emerge from the side of the bed with that wicked little gleam in your eye. I loved the way you tore my clothes off of me and held my wrists together above my head. It was so primal. Now you treat me like I'm made of glass. I feel like your sister, not your lover."

"But Hilde I don't want to hurt you. You've been hurt so much in the past and when I heard you talk about what those men did, I realized that it was all my fault." Duo hung his head in shame.

"What? Your fault! How could it possible be your fault?" Hilde was shocked. She wasn't expecting that.

"You were fine and then you started having the nightmares and after your breakthrough with the doctor, I realized I had brought it all back to you. Those games we played must've been a living hell for you. I'm so ashamed. I pushed you too far." Duo buried his face in his hands and Hilde sat there shocked.

"Duo you're being an idiot. I loved all that stuff. I wouldn't let you do anything to me that I wasn't into. I don't know why I started having the flashbacks, but the doctor says it was most likely because there wasn't any conflict in my life after the war, so my mind created the chaos that it thought it needed to survive. No that it matters. Whatever triggered those memories, you weren't the one who hurt me. Those boys did it."

"But Hilde..."

"Shut up Duo, I'm not done. I love you. I wouldn't have gotten out of that hospital if I didn't have someone like you waiting for me, giving me hope and a reason to live. I need you Duo and I know that I haven't been trying, but trying for us is yelling at each other and throwing things and I was so afraid that if I did that you'd send me back. I don't want out of this marriage. I really would go insane if I had to deal with all of this myself." Hilde couldn't hold back her tears anymore. "Please don't send me back Duo. I'll try harder. I don't want to lose you." She cried and clung onto Duo when he wrapped his arms around her.

"Hey you called me an idiot. Well, I guess I have been, but you're pretty stupid if you think I'd send you back to that hospital. I've lived through five years of hell waiting for you to come back to me. I've got no desire to go back to that." Duo leaned back and looked her in the eye. "Know this Hilde, babe. No matter what happens to us in the future, I'll wait for you. As long as it takes, no matter where you are. I'm never gonna let you go." Duo kissed her head and rocked her in his arms. Eventually she fell asleep and he followed suit.

It wasn't easy for Hilde. Going back to the therapist was terrifying, but at least she knew she wouldn't be alone. Duo squeezed her hand and guided her into the building. This wasn't about her. It wasn't an evaluation of her sanity. It was about them. They were trying. Things weren't perfect, but they were going to get better and they still loved each other.

That night Duo made love to her. He sucked on her neck so hard that it left a three inch hicky. It wasn't fudge swirl, but it wasn't totally vanilla. It was somewhere in between and for Hilde it was very, very sweet.

~fin~

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