Title: When I Talk To You
Author: Lady of the Ink
Pairing: V/H
Category: Action/Adventure/Romance, with some good angst thrown in for flavor J
Disclaimer: I don't own Escaflowne, but you knew that. I hope. But I do own this story and all the plot twists it contains.

Chapter One
Remember Me?

Corey Kanzaki suppressed a shudder as he neared the front door of the Zymen Institute. It looked like every other building on the block, with its stark brick and mirrored glass. Completely generic and unremarkable . . . unless you knew what it contained.

Squaring his shoulders, he pushed open the front door, making his way to the massive desk that sat exactly in the center of the room. A woman in a white lab coat, her blonde hair pulled tightly back, gave him a small nod as she passed him a sign in sheet. Taking a pen from the holder, he scrawled his name across a blank line, idly noting that it was the only one on the page.

Replacing the pen, he passed the sheet back to the woman, who pushed a button somewhere out of his line of sight. A loud buzz sounded, signaling the opening of a lock. Moving to the left, he went through a now open metal door and headed down a long hallway. The only sound was the squeak of his sneakers on the waxed floor.

The door he wanted was the next to last one on the right side. Only a small plaque reading "116" marked it as different from the others like it. Turning the knob, he stepped into the dimly lit room. While waiting for his eyes to adjust to the change of light, he took a deep breath. When he did, his lungs filled with the flat, oppressed air that came to all closed in spaces.

Tamping down the burning anger that rose within him, Corey strode across the small stretch of space between himself and the window. Yanking on the cord to the bland blind, bright afternoon sunlight filtered in. For a long moment he paused, staring at the brick wall just inches away that constituted a view, bracing himself for what came next.

He turned to face the bed, the main focal point of the room. Lying on the white sheets, his sister looked frail and pale. Dark half circles stood out beneath her eyes, the only color left in her face. Her hair, once a shining cap, now lay in a dull halo around her head.

Looking away, Corey moved to the single chair, pulling it up beside the bed. Sitting down, he took one of Hitomi's hands between both of his own, slightly startled to feel how cool it was.

"Hitomi," he whispered, leaning towards her. "Hitomi, wake up."

At the sound of his voice, her eyes fluttered open. The green depths, so like his own, were cloudy and unfocused. Her head rolled languidly to the side, the only sign of recognition that she showed.

Swallowing hard, he squeezed her hand lightly. "Hey, big sister. Sorry I'm late today, but I missed my bus."

Having to force a smile and a cheerful voice in the face of her blank expression was one of the hardest things he had ever had to do, but he did it. She wouldn't notice if the smile never reached his eyes and was a little strained, or if his voice was a little too bright. After all, Hitomi didn't really notice anything anymore.

After a short pause, he began to talk about his day. Every stupid little detail from what he had for lunch to the color of the gum he'd found stuck to his shoe was related in a cheery tone. It was the same sort of conversation he'd carried on yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that, but she wouldn't care.

Their lives were the same like that, stuck in a routine. Every morning he'd get up, grab something to eat on the way to school, then sit through a million dull classes. Afterwards, he'd catch a bus down here to spend time with Hitomi every day, to talk to her. He always hoped that some part of her knew he was there, knew that she wasn't alone, wasn't forgotten.

But if he were truly honest with himself, he'd have to admit that these visits were as much for himself as they were for her. He needed to keep the link between then them strong, especially now. He had to feel connected to the one person who had always been there for him, had always understood him.

It was also sort of his way of paying her back for all the things she'd done for him over the years. Sticking up for him when older kids decided he'd be fun to tease, convincing their parents to let him take karate lessons. Even the time she'd taken the blame for a broken window so he could go to a friend's birthday party. Corey wanted nothing more than he wanted Hitomi to wake up, really wake up. To laugh and smile, to complain about homework and ramble on and on about boys and track.

But most of all, he wanted her to understand him when he told her how much he needed her to be a part of his life.

Later that afternoon . . .

Corey pushed open the door to his family's apartment. He knew without looking that his mother would be in the kitchen, working on dinner. His father wouldn't be home for at least another twenty minutes. Shutting the door with a barely audible click, he headed straight back the hall to his room. Gone were the days of yelling "Mom! I'm home!", then joining her in the kitchen to talk about his day at school.

That had stopped the day Hitomi left. In fact, a lot of things stopped that day two months before. Like him trusting his parents.

Making it to his room, he dropped his bag on the bed before taking a seat at his desk. For the second time that day, Corey found himself staring out the window, only this time it wasn't a brick wall holding his attention. It was the sky. His thoughts drifted back to a few days before things got really bad. He'd confronted Hitomi about her strange mood. It took awhile, but he finally wore her down into telling him everything.

It had just poured out like something too long bottled; this amazing tale of another world hidden behind the stars. A place where dragons still roamed, real knights trained, and a war had been fought. It sounded impossible, too odd to have really happened, let alone to his sister. But she'd been so earnest, so eager for him to believe her that he couldn't bring himself to think she was lying. Her story never changed, her sincerity never seemed forced or fake.

He could almost picture the people she spoke of. The dark haired boy king to whom she'd given her prized pendant (there was definitely more to that story than she was telling, he knew). The long haired knight whose honor came before all else. The pink haired cat girl, annoying burglar but unflinching loyal friend.

It had never been a problem for him to accept them as real. It had taken time for it to sink in, but after that, he found he rather liked the idea of another world existing out there, full of a million things he'd yet to dream of. Unfortunately, his mother didn't share the same opinion. One day she happened to overhear the siblings talking about Gaea and she went off like a loaded cannon. He didn't remember a lot of the speech she gave, most of it being shouted or just plain unintelligible. But he did recall something about not letting some imaginary land ruin another generation of her family.

Hitomi had explained later on about their Grandmother's own trip to Gaea, and the fact that their mother had never believed it. That was one of the many things that had led to the two of them not speaking for years at a time. On a completely impersonal level, Corey supposed he could understand his mother's point of view. She had already lost one relationship with a family member over Gaea, she certainly didn't want to lose another. But he didn't get how strongly she resisted even thinking about the possibility of it being real.

He was very surprised at the lengths she was willing to go to to convince them they were wrong. She scheduled an appointment with a psychiatrist who spent the entire hour talking about delusions and the strength of the human desire to believe in the impossible. Since he himself had never seen Gaea or any of the things it held that defied explanation, Corey'd had no problem nodding his way through the session.

Hitomi was a different story.

He guessed that having everyone tell you you're delusional and that the people you had come to care for weren't real would grind on anyone's nerves. For Hitomi, it was the last straw. She wound up screaming at both her mother and the shrink, calling them narrow minded fools who wouldn't know a melef from a hole in the ground. That outburst cost her a weekly appointment and a month of total grounding. She hadn't spoken to anyone but him since.

Even then, things would have settled down eventually if it weren't for the dreams.

Hitomi spoke of them in whispers, dark dreams that haunted her every time she closed her eyes. She said they felt more like visions, only they never came when she was awake. The people on Gaea were in trouble, she said. The connection she had shared with Van after her return was suddenly broken, and it was driving her crazy to not be able to warn them. She became edgy and tense, losing sleep every night. It became worse and worse until finally, she wouldn't even get out of bed. Nothing seemed to get through to her. She just lay there, day after day, staring at nothing.

When their mother sent her to the institute, Corey had argued for days with no effect. It burned like an open wound to think that his own mother might be allowing the trouble over Gaea urge her into signing away her only daughter rather than face what had happened. He swore to himself that he would bring his sister home as soon as he could, mother or no mother. She needed fresh air and time to think, not mind numbing drugs and a bed she never got to leave. But it was clear that she needed one thing above everything else.

Hitomi had to get back to Gaea.