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Van looked up at Ciara tears pouring from his cheeks, "Ci...Ci...ara, I'm so sorry. I..I...thought." It was getting hard to talk. Thoughts of revenge raced through his head. His dagger wasn't too far from him, he had said he would dye before Kyoko touched a hair on Ciara's head and he was certain that she wouldn't. They could get to a hospital or something and fix her up. Van had made sure that the wound wouldn't kill but still.

Van ran up to Ciara and grabbed her. His arms ached, feet protested, and vision was blurred by tears. "Don't worry babe. I'll get you help just don't move to much and you'll be ok." He lifted her in his arms and ran looking for a hospital, doctors office, anything that would help. He pushed himself with newfound strength. He couldn't loose Ciara, he wouldn't. How had he hurt her anyway, wasn't she supposed to not be able to be hurt? What had gone wrong? Or had something gone terribly right?

"Don't talk please...Save your strength." He looked ahead seeing a hospital not too far away. He ran through people weaving like he was dancing through them, "Just enjoy our little dance." With one hand he got another CD in the player, this time it was Aerosmith starting with full circle. He placed the head phones on her, "Just relax and listen to the music." He ran through the hospital doors.

The doctors got Ciara on a stretcher and started to take her back. They stopped Van at first, "Sir, I'm afraid that only immediate family can be come back with the patients when we take them back."

Van stopped for a moment, "I'm her husband." The words left his mouth before he realized what he was saying. The word husband seemed so strange to him so foreign. He got back his composure, "Is that immediate enough for you?"

The doctors let him go back. Van hated seeing them work on her. She seemed so helpless rigged up to these machines. while strange men in white scrubs did this and that to repair the wound with the sound of the heart monitor resounding the most in Van's ear.

"Please don't dye." Van watched them work slowly yet surely with her life dangling in her hands. "I'm so sorry."

After the surgery she was taken to a room to be monitored constantly. Van just sat and watched. He had never really been a religious person but for once he found himself earnestly praying that she be ok, making deals of this and that, and most of all regretting every thing he had done to her.

Van looked up at her through wet eyes when she moved. Ciara was going to be ok. At least that was what he wanted to believe. He watched her waiting for her to awaken.

Van danced around the room in circles. Love. She had called him love. The word rang warmly in his ears. A smile spread across his face. He turned to her, "Morning Babe."

"I'm so sorry Babe. I was just so confused. You were her and she was you and you kept taunting me like it was some sick game. And then I thought that everything was going to be fine but it wasn't and the doctors wouldn't let me back so I said I was your husband and they were like, ok, so I came back and you looked so weak and I got a stranger to go back and get the things I had the guy pick up for me and I just couldn't stop crying and I thought I might have accidentally killed you by mistake." Van just broke down and let out everything. He had been so miserable with himself and what he had done. His daggers seemed so horrible now to him so unfamiliar.

Van looked into her eyes, "Yes, I do. More than you could even imagine. Ciara I love you and nothing can change that. I wouldn't have done all of this if I didn't." He knew that she might not love him after what he had done but he could care less. He loved her no matter how much she loved him.