AN and Disclaimer: I’m getting kinda tired of this same crap. You know ‘Oh poor Hilde!’ So I’ve decided to add a little action! I had a plan for this story but I changed it a little. The ending will still be like I planned though, but this is not the ending! Far from it I think! Sorry again for the gramatical errors!


Chapter 3

Hilde didn’t say anything to Duo, she just looked at him. “I’m not hungry,” she said again, but he wouldn’t’ take no for an answer. He really needed to talk to her; he needed to make her understand that he felt horrible for what he’d done, for what they’d all done.

“You may not be hungry, but you’re going to eat. You are too thin, you look anorexic for God’s sake! You will eat even if I have to feed you myself,” he said with intensity. He needed to talk to her and this way he could kill two birds with one stone. He pushed past Hilde who was blocking the door and he put the platter on the vanity across the room. He then took the two plates and motioned her to sit on the bed with him.

Hilde reluctantly sat across the bed from him and took the plate of food he offered her along with a glass of water. She declined the wine. The food smelled delicious but she knew that she would be full after a few bites. Her system had gotten used to the small portions of food.

“Eat,” he said and began eating himself.

With a heavy sigh she put the fork in her mouth, surprised at the taste of the food. It made her remember so many things. She hadn’t had homemade food in years. They had fed her practically slops at the prison, and it had been very little slop too.

“How do you like it?” asked Duo quietly.

She took her time in answering then she finally said, “It’s good.”

Duo finished his food in five minutes, by which time Hilde had taken only a few bites and little sips of water and she was done. She stood up and went to the bathroom to brush her teeth. She felt his eyes on her, but she didn’t turn around to face him. When she came out she saw that his empty plate had joined her half eaten one on the platter on the vanity.

Duo didn’t know how to start the conversation. He wanted to tell her so many things, but he knew that she would become defensive the minute he touched the subject he desperately wanted to talk about. So, he went for the next best thing: talking about her.
“I like your hair. It’s so long now,” he said as he stood up and stepped in front of her.

“It grew, hair does that with time,” she said bitterly looking at the floor. Hilde knew that she could not avoid this, they would have had this conversation sooner or later. She had just wished it had been later, when she was ready for what was to come. ‘After all of these years, after all that had happened I still care for him. It’s not the same feeling it was before,it had dimmed a little, but I still care,’ she thought as she looked at her feet. There was no way in hell that she could look at him, at his eyes. Those eyes that more often than not told you that everything was okay, that nothing could hurt you. Those eyes that had so mesmerized her all those years ago. ‘Those same eyes that looked at you with loathing in a courtroom,’ her mind reminded her. ‘Those same eyes that looked at you with love one day and the next they accused you of something you didn’t do! Those same eyes that held not trust for you!’ With all of these thoughts running inside in her head, Hilde kept her gaze down.

“Hilde,” he said quietly, “look at me. Please, look at me. I want you to see how sorry I am for hurting you, for not trusting you," he said, his voice almost breaking.

“No,” she whispered. “I can’t. I can’t look at you, I don't think I can ever forgive you. There are too many memories in your eyes.”

“But don’t tell me those memories are not happy ones. We had happy times together, babe.”

“Happy memories? Yes, but there were marred by all the unhappy ones that I have now. Not even during the war have I had so many unpleasant memories. And the happy ones just make me think of the unhappy ones, the ones that will never leave me.”

Duo’s eyes started to water. His vision blurred and he tried to blink the tears back. “I am so sorry, Hilde. Please say you forgive me. I-- it felt horrible not knowing if I could trust you, babe. I felt that my world had come crashing down around me and there was no place to hide,” Duo’s voice finally broke as he confessed his feelings.

Hilde shook her head and for the first time looked at him. Her own eyes wet with the silent tears she’d been shedding since he started talking. “I’m sorry Duo, but you couldn’t have felt worse than I did. How do you think it feels to have your so called friends turn away from you at a time when you needed them the most? How do you think it feels to have no one trust you? To have everyone on earth and the colonies look at you like you are the scum of the Earth. Every time I looked at them I knew they were wishing my death. But you know what the worst thing was? The thing that hurt the most, Duo? When the one you love most in the universe doesn’t believe you. When he doesn’t give you a chance to defend yourself against something you didn’t’ do!”

As he looked at her, he could see all the pain, all the suffering, and all the emotional wounds that had not healed. He needed another chance from her. He knew it was too much to ask for, but he needed her forgiveness; a chance to prove to her that he still loved her. “I still love you, Hilde. I admit that I thought the worse things of you for a long time, but then I realized that I still loved you. I--”

“You ‘want another chance’,” she scoffed. “Tell me Duo, why should I give you a second chance when you didn’t give me one? Why should I trust you, how can I trust your ‘love’ when the last time you said you loved me you turned around and called me a murderer? Tell me, Duo!” she shouted.

“Hilde, you’re acting hysterical now. Try to calm down,please,” he soothed regretting his earlier outburst.

“No, you calm down! You don’t know what it was like for me in that place. You don't know what happened because if you did you wouldn’t want anybody’s apologies either!” she shouted at him. Too many years of bottled up emotions were surfacing. She had never really talked to Moira about how se felt and she had never thought she would get the chance to say this to the person that had hurt her the most.

“I--”

“You think it was nice being there? You think it was just like any other prison here on Earth or in the colonies? Believe me Duo, it if had been it like that it would be much easier to forgive you,” she said.

“No, Hilde. I know that it wasn’t easy, and that you were hurt badly, but you have to move on.”

“But you don’t know what happened! Do you know that it was so cold that your lips were blue all the time? That there wasn’t enough food to go around? Did you know that there wasn’t fresh water to drink half the time? But if you think that’s bad, you don’t know the half of it! There are worse things, Duo Maxwell.”

“No, Hilde I didn’t know,” he said sounding a little defeated. “But what do you want me to do? You want me to beg? As much as I love you, I will not get down on my knees and beg you!” He hadn’t imagined this talk would turn out like this. He’d always know that trust had always been a big part of Hilde; he had known that she trusted him with her life five minutes after they met. She trusted him enough to risk her life for him, and years later how did he repay her? He repaid her by not trusting her! By not believing in her or staying by her side when she needed him the most. So, of course their talk would be like this. He never expected her to welcome him with open arms, but he’d expected to see some of her sweet nature still there, intact. But the fact was that her sweetness was gone, and he’d played a big part in killing it.

Hilde ignored his anger and continued to tell him about the prison. “And do you want to know what was worse than all of that, Duo?” she asked him looking at his eyes with anger and pain.

“Hilde...” he said exasperated.

“Rape, Duo,” she whispered lowering her head.

Duo’s face hardened into a mask of disbelief. ‘Oh God no!’ he thought. This was the last thing he had bee expecting. He knew that she had been mistreated, but not like that! “Rape?” ‘No, no!”

“Oh yes,” she said wiping her tears with her hands. Sniffling and with her voice cracking she said, “And more than once.”

“Why? When? Who?” he asked angered. Nobody touched Hilde like that! Nobody!

“Does it really matter anymore? Will it make a difference? I don’t try to answer the questions anymore. I don’t try to figure it why they did it; all I know now is that it’s over and it will never happen again. I will never let anybody touch me!”

“How can you say that? Rape is the most terrible thing that can ever happen to a woman and you take this better than you took our mistake?”

“Your ‘mistake’, as you so delicately put it, caused this. And it’s not that I take it lightly, it is just that I look at it and say ‘What can I do to make it better?’ and I tell myself that I can’t go back and change the fact that I was raped, but what I can do is prevent you from putting me in a situation like that again!”

“Just-- God, just... just tell me who it was?” he asked even more angry than before. He wanted to kill this guy! He wanted to rip him to shreds for touching her like that!

“Why do you want to know? You can’t do--”

“Just tell me!” he ordered.

Hilde took a deep breath before replying, “Guards, Duo... they were just guards.”

“Guards?” he whispered. “Why would they do that? They were there to protect you, not to hurt you!” he accused.

“I don’t know Duo! Why don’t you ask them! Don’t you think I asked myself that question when it happened? Don’t you think I tried to stop them? I did, but what good did it do against three large men? It was just me against three large men! I couldn’t hold them off for long. I tried to the first time, the second, but by the third time I knew that I couldn't stop them!”

“Why didn’t you tell anybody?” he asked angrily. He didn’t want to believe that it had been so easy for them to rape her. He didn’t want to believe that she couldn’t have prevented it. ‘Why did you let them do it?’ he felt like asking, but he knew he couldn’t because he knew that she would have prevented it if she could have.

“I did, but they didn’t care! To them you are less than an animal. If they had to choose between a dog and an inmate they would gladly choose the dog. They don’t care what happens to the inmates. If one of them dies, then good, one less to take care of. And do you seriously think that they would care about someone like me, the one who was accused of trying to kill the person who brought them peace, the one person that keeps their peace from shattering?”

Duo couldn’t believe what he was hearing! They didn’t care about any of them, they were less than animals. Duo didn’t say anything for a long time. He just stood there looking at her eyes, her tears, and the way her lips quivered when she remembered the harsh treatment. Her tears had never seemed so real to him before. He’d seen her cry before, but these tears seemed to have much more emotion behind them. He realized that her tears were the tears she hadn’t cried in all of those years she’d been in prison. All the years of loneliness, of pain, and years of thinking you were going to die in a horrible place and that nobody would care; that nobody would even remember you.

He didn’t think twice about what he did next. He simply moved closer to her and took her in his arms. He hugged her for the first time in five years and it was heaven. It was as if he had gone back in time and nothing bad had ever happened; nothing had ever taken her away from him. He didn’t seem to notice how rigid she was or the fact that she didn’t return the embrace.

Hilde was surprised, to say the least. She’d hadn't this kind of physical contact with anybody, not even Moira; all she had done was put one arm around her. She didn’t know what to do. Physical contact wasn’t something she wanted right now; she didn’t know when it would be okay for someone to touch her again. When she felt someone’s arms, or hands on her she couldn’t help but think of all those nights when...

“Don’t touch me, Duo,” she whispered desperately. She started to tremble in his arms, but he was too caught up in his own emotions to notice how uncomfortable she was starting to get. “Duo, let me go!” she said a little louder but he still didn’t release her. Hilde’s heart started to beat twice as fast as normal, her breathing mimicked that of someone who had been running a marathon. She took deep breaths that didn’t help. Her desperation overwhelmed her. She didn’t know how to calm herself, the only thing she knew would calm her was if he let her go. Her self-preservation took over her body and her mind. She didn’t register the loving arms that held her, all she could feel was arms that kept he captive. Arms that were tight around her and wouldn’t let her move. She started struggling against the bonds. She closed her eyes and pushed hard against the chest that helped those arms keep her captive. She pushed and cried out for them to leave her alone, for them not to touch her. “Let me go, please, please let me go! Don’t! Please don’t touch me! Stop it! Don’t touch me, please! Please!”

When he heard the screams he immediately let her go, but she didn’t stop screaming at the invisible guards to let her go. He tried to calm her down by gently telling her that she was okay, that nothing was wrong but her senses didn’t perceive anything beyond the fact that she was being held against her will, even when she really wasn’t.

Hilde’s yelling and screaming only got louder when he tried to hug her again. She started thrashing, and waving her arms wildly. Duo didn’t do that again, he knew that wasn’t the way to calm he down. He realized that the screaming would interrupt the dining people downstairs. When he heard the door open he knew he’d been right.

The other seven occupants of the house rushed upstairs and into Hilde’s bedroom to see her on the floor desperately trying to prevent invisible hands from touching her. She was holding herself and her arms were trying to prevent hands only she could see from touching her hair, her arms, and other body parts.

Sally ran out of the room to get her medical kit. Five seconds later she came back in yelling out orders to the five men in the room.

“Hold her down! No, all of you. People can be very strong when they are like this!” she yelled at them. When Hilde felt real hands attempting to touch her, she fought harder. She knew what would happen if these hands got the better of her, she knew they would do despicable things to her.

“No, don’t touch me! Please, please leave me alone! Please don’t touch me!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.

When they pinned her down Sally stood over her with a seringe, ready to inject the contents into her arm. Sally bend down on one knee and put the contents of it in Hilde’s arm. A few seconds later after she did that Hilde’s yells got quieter and slower. Her struggling got sluggish until she eventually fell into a drug-induced, fretful sleep.

“Quatre, put her in the bed,” she said. Looking directly into Duo’s eyes she asked him, “What in the hell were you doing?”

“Nothing, we were just talking--”

“It must have been something, a very big something, to get her upset like this. What was it?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.

“I... I just hugged her. That was it! I wasn’t trying to get her to sleep with me if that’s what you’re all thinking!” he said angrily. He could tell they didn’t’ believe him. It bothered him that they didn’t and for a brief second he knew exactly how Hilde had felt all those years ago. He knew how it felt to have everybody believe you to be something you’re not. To have your friends think the worst of you. “I swear I didn’t do anything to her. We were just talking and I hugged her, and all of a sudden she became hysterical and started yelling.” he explained. “I didn’t do anything,” he added quietly. He felt he needed to assure them that he hadn’t done anything wrong.

“We believe you Duo, it’s just that it surprised us that she would act like that,” said the ever-silent Trowa.

“She thought that I was one of the guards who...” he left the sentenced unfinished. He didn’t know what to do, what to think about what Hilde had told him. Her earlier words had cut into him like a hot knife, but knowing that someone else had touched her put an anger so deep that he knew if he ever caught another man so much as touching her hair he would kill him. He knew that he still loved her, he’d known it for a long time, and it had hurt him to think that his girlfriend could try to kill their friend. But now he knew that nothing he’d ever experienced would ever hurt him as much as his disbelief had hurt Hilde.

“One of the guards that what?” prompted Quatre. Ever since they’d arrived he’d sensed there was something terribly wrong with Hilde. He’d known all along that she had changed, five years in a place that made it clear that you were the scum of the universe didn’t help you self-esteem, or your mental health. He’d sensed how Hilde had closed herself even more when she’d come into the mansion. Her face was turned into a mask of coldness that he had never seen. Her voice held no emotion, not even anger towards them, but he knew that she hated them all. She wasn’t too happy to be in the house with them, and he also knew that Duo held himself responsible for what had happened. And now that they knew she had done nothing, he held himself partially responsible for making Hilde into the emotionless person she now was.

Duo couldn’t form the words. He was quiet for a long time. He didn’t want them to know what he’d caused. He knew that it wasn’t his fault entirely. He knew that they were all a little responsible but he carried the biggest weight. He knew that, secretly, his friends blamed him for bringing Hilde into their world.

His silence began to make everyone uncomfortable, so Sally answered the question for him. “That raped her. Hilde was raped by three guards in the prison almost everyday for two years.”

Duo’s head snapped up and his eyes turned sharply to Sally. A fire leaped into his eyes, but a second later it was extinguished by the tears that pooled in the violet depths. He closed his eyes to hide the tears from his friends, but they all noticed how much he wanted to cry. He’d been doing that a lot for the past couple of days. Not one of them blamed him for crying. First he loses his only link with love, then he testifies against her in a court, then he finds out she’s innocent, and lastly she wants nothing to do with him. All the heartache and guilt were enough to make the strongest soldier cry. He managed to control himself enough to ask, “Why didn’t you tell me, Sally?”

She looked at him at a loss for words. “I didn’t know how to tell you. I was going to, but I didn’t know how you’d react.”

“We should let her rest,” said Heero. “One of use should stay in here, though.” He looked at Sally and said, “I take it you haven’t told him about the nightmares, either?”

“Nightmares? What kind of nightmares, and please don’t leave anything out,” said Duo putting his head in his hands. There were so shit going on that none of them had the mind to think about the organization that had tried to kill Relena.

“I don’t really know, all her medical records said was that she suffered from constant nightmares and that she got very violent and agitated. I didn’t read anymore. It seemed that Hilde had been in the infirmary many times, but she had never been ill. The records they kept weren’t very specific. All they the doctors and nurses did was write down what was wrong in a few words, not detail,” explained Sally in her professional voice.

“Well then, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens,” said Duo quietly.

“I think Heero is right. We should leave Hilde to rest. She’s had a hard... day, and she needs sleep and rest,” added Relena. “Who will stay with her first? She needs to have someone near in case she has a nightmare.”

“I will--” said to Duo only to be cut off by Sally.

“Quatre, you should stay. Duo... Duo needs to rest and he isn’t fit to take care of her at the moment. He can come and relieve you after he’s had a few hours of sleep.”

“Right,” said Quatre. He hadn’t really known Hilde, he’d only ever seen her a few times but he was willing to stay with her.

“The rest of us should get some rest,” said Wu Fei.

The group walked out of the room, some of them with relief others with guilt at what was happening to an innocent woman.

*~*~*~*

“She didn’t deserve this,” whispered Relena to Heero in their room.

“We know that, but what can we do about it now? We have to be realistic. When we all found out about this we felt guilty. All we can do is try to make her feel better, but you have to understand that she may never forgive us. Also we have to stop treating her like a porcelain doll. She has to get over this and our babying her won’t help. So, please don’t feel too bad about this. You have the less fault out of all of us. Even Quatre is guiltier than you. Even though we insisted, he still agreed to push the council to an early trial. They could have waited until you were out of that coma.” He would be damned if he let her feel guilty. It wasn’t her fault, she had never accused Hilde of anything.

“But I didn’t do anything to help her, Heero!”

“At my demand, Relena! You were willing to ask the council to lightened her sentence when you weren’t sure of what happened.” Heero sighed and said to her, “Let’s not talk about this anymore, it upsets both of us--”

“How do you feel about this? You almost killed her! You are the only one who hasn’t voiced his opinion or his feelings in anyway!”

“It doesn’t matter what I feel. The only thing that matters is that we have to stop feeling sorry for Hilde so she can start to lead a normal life!”

*~*~*~*

(two weeks later)

Hilde had been living with her ‘friends’ for two weeks now. She sat in the couch her psychiatrist had provided for her and waited for her to start their session. She didn’t see the point of her coming here. There was nothing wrong with her, she wasn’t crazy. All she wanted was to be left alone, to never have to see the people who made her life a living hell! Was that so wrong?

Dr. Escalante arrived and sat down across from Hilde. “You know Hilde, you can lie down if you want. That’s what the couch is for,” Dr. Escalante said as if to a child.

“That’s okay, then I’d start to believe I’m really crazy,” she said simply.

The doctor smiled and said, “Okay then, let’s start.”

Outside the office Relena and Sally sat by one another each reading a magazine. Hilde had started her visits to the doctor a week ago and they were the ones who usually accompanied her. This was her fourth visit and so far they hadn’t seen any progress, but the doctor said it took time.

“Our main priority is to get Hilde to cope with what happened to her in prison. From there, we will work our way back to the attempted murder,” Dr. Escalada had said during a meeting with Lady Une, Heero, Duo and Sally. She had also prohibited Duo from going with Hilde to her appointments. She said it ‘made Hilde upset and it prevented her from concentrating on what they had to talk about’.

Two hours later Hilde, Sally, and Relena drove home. It was silent except for the occasional comment from Sally or Relena. They didn’t’ bother to talk to Hilde anymore because they knew that they would get no response at all. The twenty minute ride always seemed to last longer. The silence was something neither Sally or Relena enjoyed. Hilde seemed to enjoy it or, if anything, she seemed to be in her own world.

When they arrived home Hilde was the first one in the house and without a word to anybody, she’d rush to her room. She spent all of her time there. She didn’t join them for dinner or in any activity they planned for the day. All she did was sit in her room and listen to the music Relena had provided for her. She took her meals in her room and would never, no matter who tried to persuade her, join them; even Wu Fei had been sent to try to talk to her.

There was one thing that all of them had noticed though, Hilde took midnight walks by herself every night. She couldn’t sleep more often than not, so she took walks in the gardens. They had found out because the guards had seen her the first time and had woken them up thinking she was trying to run away.

To that Hilde had replied, “If I were to run away, where would I go? Any place I went the Preventers would find me. And I don’t have any money.’

They all sat at the table ready to eat dinner. Since Hilde had come to the house they were all unusually uncomfortable when they were together, and they were all engrossed in their own thoughts. They didn’t talk as much as they used to.

When they began eating a loud explosion errupted from upstairs.

The only thing on Duo’s mind as he ran up the stairs was: “Hilde!”


AN: Well, that’s it for now! Oh, it takes a long time to make these chapters ten pages long each. And I have absolutely no time to write! I take every free opportunity at home and at school but I can’t finish these chapters in two days like I would like. Please be nice and review. Every nice review I get motivates me to write!