Disclaimer: Sailor Moon belongs to Naoko Takeuchi. This story is a semi-sequel to Angel Mine, and was written for the shitennou [dot com forums' Summer 2007 Ficathon.

To abate confusion for anyone who may not have read Angel Mine or its companion piece: Zoi's full name is Kai Zoisite Hideaki II, but he goes by Zoi to avoid confusion with his father. Aiden goes by his first name, which is why the naming scheme doesn't seem consistent. It is, I promise.

–
Talk To Me
–

Dee-deedlee-deedlee!

The sharp, unexpected sound of the phone ringing cut through the strains of classical music in Ami's apartment like a knife. Caught in the middle of making a sandwich, she froze for a moment, eyeing the phone warily. All of her friends knew that she was in the middle of preparing for final exams, only venturing outside of her apartment at class times or if—horror of horrors!—she somehow ran out of caffeine. To those familiar with her study habits, during the last week before exams personal visits were out of the question and phone calls were for emergencies only.

At the second ring, she quickly wiped her hands and picked up the ominous piece of electronics. Caller ID labeled the number as Hideaki Aidan's cell phone, and she punched the 'answer' button with a growing sense of dread. In the months since she'd met the Hideaki brothers, she could count the number of times Aidan had phoned her on one hand.

"Hello?"

"Ami-san…" Even over the phone, she could hear the stress in Aidan's voice. "It's Zoi. He was crossing the street on his way home, and a car… it only clipped him, a witness even said he almost managed to dodge it, but after getting hit he couldn't fall properly."

Throat constricted, Ami leaned against the kitchen counter and whispered: "How bad?"

"I don't know. The doctors haven't told me anything yet. I already called the guys, and I remember Zoi said you were up to your eyebrows in exams, but I just thought that you should know."

"I… thank you. Call me again when he can have visitors, and I'll come for a while."

"Thanks. I appreciate it, and so will he."

After Aidan hung up, Ami mechanically finished making her sandwich and wandered back to her couch and coffee table, where her notes were spread out in organized piles. She picked up the top sheet of the nearest pile, which she'd been reviewing last, and stared at it blankly. It was a very, very good thing this had happened on the last day of her study week, because it was going to be nearly impossible to concentrate now.

- - -

"It's never enough, is it?"

Ami stood at the side of the hospital bed, head bowed, looking down at Zoi as he slept. Three cracked ribs, a broken hip, and a nearly shattered wrist bone conspired with a concussion and painkillers to keep him mostly unconscious, and unresponsive the few brief moments he'd woken up soon after she'd arrived. The doctor—her doctor, the trauma surgeon she'd been interning under for the past eight months—had told them that Zoi's internal organs had been shaken and bruised, but there'd been no signs of internal bleeding or other serious trauma.

"It's not enough," she whispered again.

Aidan glanced up at her from his chair on the other side of the bed, blue eyes questioning, but rather than interject a question or comment he silently waited for her to continue.

"I first wanted to be a doctor because of my mom… but then it was because more than anything, I want to protect the people I care about. I couldn't seem to protect them growing up no matter how much I tried, and even now I still can't do anything but stand here."

Aidan stood with a sigh and leaned on the bedside railing. "You can't fix everything. No matter how hard you try, some things you can't change. What's important is to figure out what things you can influence, and go from there."

She nodded. "…I suppose I do know that. It's just so difficult to accept, sometimes."

After a short period of contemplative silence, Aidan spoke again. "It's funny that you want to be a doctor in order to protect. I started studying history for the same reason. Unless you learn about the past, you'll be doomed to repeat the same mistakes in the future. For the longest time I've felt like something's coming, something big, and the only way to meet it is to understand what came before." He shrugged. "Maybe I'm wrong, but I won't take that chance. Not when it could mean keeping Zoi safe—as safe as I can make him."

Ami smiled softly in understanding. "It would be better if we were never needed, but life isn't that easy. So we'll prepare for possibility of things we hope will never come true."

Aidan nodded, but whatever planned to say in response was interrupted by the appearance of Usagi and Mamoru in the doorway. Usagi made a beeline for Ami and enveloped her in a hug, while Mamoru greeted Aidan and quietly obtained an update on Zoi's status. Ami leaned gratefully into Usagi, taking strength from the blonde's comforting presence and reassuring murmurs. Usagi had always been able to make her believe that everything would turn out all right.

- - -

When Ami returned to the room the next day, she found Rei already keeping Aidan company. The dark-haired girl sat in one of the chairs with Aidan on the floor in front of her, back against her chair. She'd leaned over slightly while he'd tilted his head back, and her fingers combed through his hair as they talked quietly. At Ami's entrance they both looked up, and Rei immediately held out an arm to give Ami a hug from her seated position. Aidan didn't move, but flashed Ami a relieved grin.

"Zoi woke up properly earlier this morning. If he can stay awake long enough to eat and show that there's no sign of nerve damage in his arm, the doctors think he could go home in a day or two."

Ami smiled down at him in response, much of the stress of the previous 24 hours evaporating at the good news. "Is that all? He'll be demanding 'real food, not this hospital rubbish' by the end of the day."

Her quip earned muffled laughter from the other two, and she could feel the change in the room's atmosphere as she settled in the empty chair. They made small talk for a few minutes, until Ami shifted and bumped her handbag over, causing her microbiology textbook to slip out partway and garnering a raised eyebrow from Rei.

"Still studying?"

Ami nodded, a little sheepishly. "There are a few things from yesterday I still don't feel confident enough about."

Rei smirked. "Then you can keep wonderboy here company… our exams start on Monday too, and he's been procrastinating." Aidan smiled guiltily, hand straying to a textbook half-hidden between him and the wall, as Rei continued: "I have my duties at the shrine, as well, so I should be going anyway."

Aidan made a few half-hearted protests, but Rei firmly extracted herself and bid the two of them a good afternoon, giving Ami another hug before she left. After her departure, Aidan reclaimed the chair and cracked open the textbook with a sigh.

"There is so much more to history than names and dates, but sometimes that's all the teacher seems to want."

"I know what you mean… biology is all about life, and yet sometimes the teacher still manages to make it sound stuffy, dry, and dull."

"I think some professors make it their life's mission to take any interesting subject, and distill it so far down that there's nothing left but a few random, loosely interconnected facts."

Ami chuckled. "Maybe."

They settled into easy silence for the next few hours, reading and occasionally making comments aloud. A few comments sparked miniature discussions, including one about the nature of human life as viewed through the lens of history as opposed to life as seen through the lens of biology. To Ami's bemusement, a later discussion somehow morphed from school subjects to pranks. After she heard a few of Aidan and Zoi's more… mischievous escapades, mostly perpetrated against Kael, Nikolai, or Mamoru, he somehow turned the topic back around to her and she found herself describing some of the pranks the other girls had dragged her into—like the time Lita and Minako had convinced her to reprogram Rei's ring tone to play the first few measures of "Great Balls of Fire" a few years ago.

"If you tell her it was me, my retaliation will be swift and deadly," Ami declared with a chuckle.

"Oh?" Aidan's eyes glinted roguishly.

"I'll tell Mamoru-kun that you were the one who hid his textbooks the day before school started last year."

Aidan winced visibly. "You play dirty," he accused with a grin.

"If necessary," Ami countered, smiling in return.

After a while Aidan reached his limit and let his textbook slip closed. He respected her own use of time, however, pulling out a fiction novel to read instead of trying to engage her in further conversation.

She would have continued studying longer, but then Zoi's breathing pattern began to change. Hurriedly she closed her book and stood to lean over the bed, anxiously waiting for him to wake up.

The welcome sight of his green eyes, tired and with stress lines from pain but obviously lucid, was one of the most beautiful things she had seen in a long time.

-

Two days later, Ami visited the hospital again after her last exam for the day was over. Once again, Aidan was the only other person in the room. Since her last visit someone had also left a travel chessboard behind, and upon her arrival Ami found Aidan playing against himself.

He offered her a faint smile. "Zoi insisted on playing earlier… made it about halfway through a game before he fell asleep while I was planning my next move. I'd already finished my book, so I just kept going."

"Has he been asleep long?"

"Twenty minutes, tops. He'll probably wake back up soon." Aidan gave her yet another brilliant grin. "You probably noticed the IVs are gone. The docs said there's no sign of nerve damage… he can go home tomorrow."

"That's wonderful news. Well, I don't want to go home without having talked with him, so in that case…" She moved the extra chair closer to the chessboard. "Which side was his?"

Aidan blinked. "You play?"

She nodded. "I find it relaxing. Zoi-kun and I have played time lapse games through email, since we're both so busy."

"He never mentioned anything like that…" Aidan glanced over at Zoi.

"Probably because I've beaten him nine times out of ten," Ami smiled, embarrassment warring with pride and a hint of mischief.

He laughed quietly. "That would do it. Zoi hates admitting to a loss, not that it's ever stopped me from winning. Are you sure you want to start from a disadvantage?"

Ami's eyes sparkled with determination and amusement. "Just you watch me."

They played in companionable silence for a while. Ami quickly realized that Aidan wasn't bragging when he claimed to be better than his brother. He was a gifted tactician, probably even better than Zoi when it came to long-term strategies, and she soon became absorbed into the flow of the game. Consequently, when Aidan next spoke she was almost as surprised by the sound of his voice as by what he said.

"What are your intentions towards my brother?"

Ami's head snapped up from her survey of the chessboard, eyes wide. "I beg your pardon?"

Aidan rested his elbows on the arms of his chair, gazing steadily at her over steepled fingers.

"My brother. You're possibly the only girl I know who's been able to hold his interest for more than a few days, and you two have known each other for months, now. I'm fairly positive that if he didn't think you'd turn him down, he'd ask out on a proper date... and from your expression," he added, raising his eyebrows, "you know it too. You're perfectly content with phone conversations and long emails—I've seen him take over an hour to respond to some of your stuff—but you limit face-to-face interaction to within a group. Quite frankly, he doesn't know what to do with you. Yet despite his misgivings you obviously care about him in some capacity, because you've given up a chunk of your near-sacred study time to be at the hospital even when he's usually not aware you're here." He paused, watching her. "What do you want from him, Ami-san?"

Ami sank back in her chair, staring at Aidan and hating how she could feel the heat of a rising blush on her face and neck. A moment later she remembered their sleeping peanut gallery, and glanced nervously at Zoi in case he'd woken up and heard anything. She could only imagine Zoi's reaction if he found out how Aidan had so bluntly barged into his brother's—the blush deepened—potential love life.

"I…" She took a deep breath and closed her eyes briefly, trying to order her thoughts from the whirlwind Aidan's unexpected speech had created. She wasn't even entirely sure why she was admitting this to Aidan of all people, when she'd denied the presence of anything beyond platonic friendship even at the most recent 'Girls' Night In' a month ago, but the protective gleam in the blond's eyes made it impossible to not answer truthfully.

"I have been extremely busy, trying to get my degree as quickly as possible—too busy for anything beyond a casual friendship with your brother. But I do like him, and if he asked me during the holidays…" She trailed off, looking at Zoi rather than meet Aidan's gaze.

He watched her for a few moments, weighing her answer, and then nodded, apparently satisfied. "So let him know that." Then, as if he'd never asked the question, he turned his full attention back to the chess game.

Ami sighed as she moved her remaining bishop, wondering if this kind of thing was going to become a recurring theme in her interactions with Aidan. For supposedly having difficulties reading body language, Aidan seemed far too perceptive in other ways. It actually reminded her a little of Rei, and Ami wondered absently if he'd learned any of it from the priestess.

She didn't have time to think on it for very long, however, because as Aidan countered her with one of his knights, Ami realized something else.

She had no idea what she was going to say to Zoi when he woke up this time.

Fin.

– – –

Not my best work, but I don't have the time or inspiration to revise it right now. Comments, crit, praise, and/or suggestions are welcome.

10/07