Nina came first...

Peace (1999)

She entered the room, silencing her steps as if there were any chance that the sound could wake him up. Her heart skipped one bit the moment she saw him, lying on that same bed he had spent the last six months. She hadn't seen him since he had left the ICU.

His surgery went well, his recovery went well... he just had never woken up. Why? She wondered if there was a chance he simply didn't want to. His perfect suicide had been a complete failure. Why would he be interested in waking up? No. She had been told that was very unlikely while the correct answer was much simpler. The surgery hadn't gone so well. His brain had suffered too much damage. He was going to remain in a coma, waiting for his body to deteriorate, waiting for death. It was a longer, more painful process but... maybe he had been successful after all.

She took a chair, positioning it next to the bed. She sat before really looking at him.

God, he still was so beautiful. Exactly like the boy she remembered.

So yes, her first thought was to praise his physical appearance. But... it was the first time they were that close in more than a decade.

"Hello, brother..."

Finally, she could observe those features, really observe them. There was so little new on them, so little she couldn't recognize from the brother she once had. His hair color was the same pale blond she remembered, so thin, a little wavy. She remembered how soft it was and how she liked it. Those eyelashes were as long as she remembered them. Of course, she remembered them, and how they framed his eyes, his intense stare always upon her. They hadn't changed one bit. And... there it was. He had a small freckle on his left cheek, close to his nose. Almost invisible unless close to him. It had always been there. That didn't change one bit either.

His paleness was greater now, though.

"I've thought a lot about us in the last months..." her eyes reached the window, closed, and the intense rain outside.

She had thought about them all the time, non-stop. She had thought about their childhood, all of it. She had wondered about his adolescence. What had really been of Johan during those ten years? And the topic that occupied most of her hours was he and herself. Them. She was happy with the result of those thoughts. She had tried to understand his path, his whole evolution. It had been so painfully easy, once her amnesia had disappeared. So easy... how his determination and hope were stopped by his anger. A huge mistake that meant an end to all his plans, that rainy night the Lieberts met death. All he. Then his pain came, all her fault, and started the slow process that turned it into the anger and void that defined him as an adult. He came back. But no, there was a little hope left. It probably wasn't hope, just curiosity, so he left her the last chance... and she failed once again. So, he decided to put an end to it. The chase began for her, following Dr. Tenma's steps. Twice the chances it seems, but they both failed.

Had he ever wondered about the past, the one he couldn't remember? Probably, but it had been an absolute surprise to cross paths with it once again, in the shape of a children's book. That meant a little stop to his game, but nothing more. He looked for answers and when he thought they were enough... He had gotten much less than her, she was sure of that, but they were enough for him. The Red Rose Mansion had been enough.

At that moment, under that rain, he had already lost his patience. He had said so. No hope left. She was being more than a decade late. She was the one irrational, naïve.

She... had been more complex, still was. A complete mess of emotions, memories, ideas. Pure chaos. She had loved him terribly, so her love was capable of becoming such a monstrous hate, and fear. She remembered them both. She had left everything behind in order to chase the monster her brother had become, because of himself and because of her, thinking that it was her duty to do so. Why?