A/N: And now for something completely different. I say this in reference to the fact that all the other fics I've posted here (that I'll admit to) are from Tales of Vesperia. This is not a completely different No. 6 story, as it's me taking a bash at a reunion fic. Hopefully I did all right in terms of characterization. I did avoid some of the more common similarities I've noticed in these: Shion leaving the window open, a rainy day return, a four-year absence to keep the math tidy, and Shion having no priorities ranked higher than Nezumi.

I've read through some of the novel translations and borrowed a few details from there, but a lot of stuff comes from the anime, including the size of the bakery and the shape of Shion's scar. Anyways, I think there are only a few minor references to the novels, so it shouldn't be a problem for readers who've only seen the anime.

Disclaimer: The characters and settings in this story are from No. 6 and do not belong to me.

It seemed like I hadn't stopped moving for the whole of that first year after the parasite city, No. 6, fell. There was far too much to do in those early days when the city had become a seething mass of chaos. Most immediately, there were scores of people who had been injured in the catastrophe. I spent most of my time during those first weeks doing what I could to suture wounds, treat burns, acquire and distribute medicine, and anything else my limited experience would allow me to handle. Often, it turned out the only thing I could do was sterilize medical instruments or apply bandages.

Sometimes, more often than I liked, but less than I might have expected, I sat with a person before the end. When that happened, I would remember what Inukashi had once told me about Nezumi singing souls painlessly to their rest. I envied him that strange power, and missed him, but I never had much time to dwell on his absence.

Even as groups of us worked to get the injured cared for, other problems were brewing. The people of the West Block had flooded into the city and, although the strange daze that had settled over so many people seemed to help keep the peace during that first encounter, relations between the sides quickly deteriorated. Those from the West Block turned the city into an enormous, wild celebration of abundance and revenge. Some of those who had lived all their lives within the wall joined in the destruction and looting, whether through a sense of freedom or sheer panic. We were swamped with waves of people in need of care due to injuries or simple over-indulgence.

After a week of complete lawlessness, leaders from groups all over the city got together and decided that something had to happen to unite all the disparate elements. The way things were going, it would be surprising if any of the infrastructure necessary to sustain a population survived a year. Ten days after the walls surrounding No. 6 fell, we blew up the Moondrop.

It was spectacular. As I watched, I knew I was grinning with an expression every bit as wild as the chaos that had overtaken the city, but I didn't care. I'd always disliked the Moondrop. If its destruction could be the signal for the start of a new era, then that was all the better.

The revelry continued for another three days, but it had more of a festival air to it, and people were already turning their minds back to the work that needed to be done. More and more, people put aside their celebrations and turned their hands to helping the city rebuild and recover.

During those first disorganized, amazing months, I worked until I had no more strength left, ate when Mom pressed food into my hands, and slept wherever I passed out. I lost a lot of weight that I really couldn't afford to lose, but I was doing what was necessary, and what was right. It felt good.

I had nightmares. That was only to be expected after everything I had done, I suppose. Exhaustion mostly kept them at bay, but I returned to the Correctional Facility time and time again in my sleep. Those were the worst of my nightmares, and the most common at first. I dreamed of Nezumi, too, good dreams and bad, which never failed to leave me lonely when I woke from them.

I felt Nezumi's absence the way I had after our first meeting: in flashes and daydreams. Random stimuli reminded me of the months we had lived together and the things he had taught me. I thought about him infrequently and out of the blue and forgot just as quickly as some new problem arose and demanded all my attention. I'd have missed him more if I'd had time to dwell, but I still believed that the two of us were connected and that I would see him again. I was able to content myself with that when work didn't keep my mind off him.

Once the initial madness and excitement of change had largely subsided, we turned our focus to rebuilding the essential parts of the city. The wall and the Correctional Facility hadn't been the only structures to fall that day. A lot of people had lost their homes, either because of the hunt or the tempest that had raged through No. 6. Either way, they needed shelter. Homes, hospitals, water lines, and roads were the first things we focused the rebuilding efforts on. People tore down the rest of the wall and carried it through the city like ants bringing back pieces of a prize too large to take whole into their colony. The wall was reabsorbed into the city that had created it.

Despite the good intentions of most involved, the beginning of the rebuilding phase was mired in chaos. With no central leadership to provide direction and orchestrate everyone's efforts, difficulties arose hourly. Eventually, people began to realize that someone had to be given at least the semblance of authority or nothing was going to get done. With the tragedy of what No. 6 had become still fresh in everyone's mind, however, the idea of giving someone that much power was pretty scary.

In the end it was decided that the city would be divided into districts and that every district would elect one person to serve on what would be called the Guidance Council. The Council would be allowed to organize the efforts of the groups rebuilding the city, and they had the authority to settle a dispute if it was brought before them. They had no power to enforce their decisions, though, and another group called the Oversight Committee, elected the same way as the Council, was created with the sole purpose of keeping watch on the Council to be sure it did not overstep its bounds or become corrupt.

Government by committee turned out to be a hugely slow process, but people were willing to work with the Council and it did help to organize everyone's efforts. By the end of that first year, the city was rebuilt enough so that most people had homes, and those that were able had gone back to their jobs. Life was starting to return to normal in the city people had begun referring to as No. 7.

At some point, the core group of people, myself included, that were involved in rebuilding the city had come to be known as the Planning Committee. The Council got into the treasury and, after months of arguing, they were allowed to begin issuing salaries to us for our work. It was the third paying job I'd held during my life and, back then, it was a good thing. During that first year and a half we were vital. After that, it was up to us to breathe life into No. 7 in the form of everything it had been missing for so long.

We converted old government buildings into museums, theaters, and libraries. We sent out letters, invitations, pleas to the other cities and welcomed back art, music, drama, creativity, and imagination. We caught some flak for tackling what some deemed an unnecessary project, but the majority mindset in that second year was still that anything No. 6 had forbidden must be something good, and so we were allowed to continue reacquainting the city with culture, helping it to find a soul.

I had more free time that year than before, and I spent more of it than I care to remember missing Nezumi fiercely. I had come to feel something for him that I'd never been properly able to put into words. I learned to name it in the second year of his absence and, knowing I was in love, I smiled even as my heart ached. Sure that he would return in his own time, I tried to be patient and wait.

In the third year, I was elected to the Oversight Committee. For someone who didn't really even like talking to people, it came as quite a shock to me. Somehow, word of my involvement with the fall of No. 6 had spread. That, combined with my efforts after the Holy Day disaster and my work with the Planning Committee had apparently earned me a very good reputation. I accepted the position, thinking that it might give me the opportunity to make a few sorely needed changes.

The school system had collapsed with the old government, and no one had earnestly sought to fix it out of fear that it would be too easy to manipulate the children. Instead, parents were encouraged to home school their children. A great many of No. 6's former elites began making their living as tutors.

I had no patience for the situation. Children with no parents were left without access to an education and, without some form of standardization or unified curriculum, there was no way to guarantee that the others were learning what they needed to. Nezumi had taught me that book-smarts would only get you so far, but that didn't make proper schooling useless by a long shot.

For months, I spent all my free time trying to get the Council to accept the importance of having an official, regulated school system. The close-mindedness and outright paranoia that ruled the people who were supposed to be leading No. 7 continually astonished me. Every bit of ground I gained with them was an uphill battle. Who would fund it when taxes weren't even regulated? Who would choose the curriculum? Who would choose the teachers? How could we be sure the children wouldn't end up brainwashed by a supporter of the old city?

The objections went on and on, and became progressively more ridiculous. One Council member actually wanted to ban former elites from teaching on the grounds that they would be more likely to defend the practices of No. 6. Another didn't want anyone who had been a resident of the West Block to be allowed to teach, claiming they were unsuited to the task of molding young minds. By then, most of the people I worked with knew of my past and that I had once been a member of both groups. It didn't stop them making those arguments when they picked apart my proposals.

Of course, there were people who supported me and helped argue the case, but with no one legitimately recognized as being in charge, it was a miracle we ever succeeded. No. 7 was entering its fourth year before the Oversight Committee and the Council finally relented and began implementing plans for a public school system.

In retrospect, it had been during that whole debacle that things began to go downhill.

During that time, I had been so focused on fighting against the stupidity born of fear and mistrust that I began to lose sight of what was happening to me. In my job with the Planning Committee, I was caught up again and again with increasingly useless plans to improve the city. Every time, I told myself that something good would come of it, that it would be the last one, anyway, and that, once the project was completed, I'd quit and leave No. 7 to go look for Nezumi.

I'd come to resent both the Council and the Oversight Committee as I struggled to ensure that children would grow up with access to an education. I cursed them for being slow and useless and foolish. There were so many times when I just wanted to give up, to run away from the city and leave it to sort out its own problems. During those times, the desire to see Nezumi again kept me awake at night, tossing and turning and wondering what he would do, but knowing that his path would be closed to me. Nezumi walked with destruction, but I wanted to build the city up, release it from the choking, dragging weight of its past and give its citizens a future.

In the end, I never did run away. I'd made No. 7 my responsibility, and I pushed through the bad days by reminding myself of small victories and repeating over and over that what I was doing would make a difference. Besides, it was kind of nice to have something like a normal life. I had a home, a steady job, plenty to eat, a safe environment…it was what most people wanted, what I'm sure a lot of people from the West Block would have killed for back when things were at their worst. It was a good thing and I was thankful, but sometimes, when I thought of my experiences before the fall of No. 6, I felt flashes of resentment for the comfortable life I led. Sometimes, I even hated myself a little for settling for it, but then I would see Mom smile at me, or someone would actually thank me for the work I did, and I would forget for a while my disenchantment.

Eventually, things got so busy between trying to create a proposal for a school system that would be approved and the ever-increasing projects the Planning Committee came up with that all the energy I'd had to be furious at the system was spent on my work.

I stopped wanting to chase after Nezumi. By the end of the fourth year, when I thought of him it was only to hope he was doing well. I didn't ache so sharply anymore when he crossed my mind, but I realized I was forgetting details of our time together, which depressed me all the same. That had been an amazingly important time for me. While Nezumi hadn't made me the person I am, he was the one who helped me to find myself when I'd been buried underneath the façade of an obedient, unquestioning citizen of No. 6. Nezumi had freed me from the city, both literally and figuratively, but he'd been gone for a long time and I could feel the connection between us fading. Sometime around the beginning of the fifth year since he'd left, I began to accept that he probably would not be coming back.

It was around that time that I first noticed that I was looking forward to storms with more than my normal appreciation for inclement weather. One day, after a particularly frustrating meeting with the Oversight Committee, I made my way home through a downpour. When I arrived, I went straight out onto the terrace, leaned over the side and shouted into the noise of the storm. It was just a couple of times, the same as it had been when Nezumi had caught me at it, and afterwards I felt some of the stress had been lifted from me.

I did it again three months later, and two months after that, and again barely three weeks after that. Soon, I was fighting back the urge to scream my resentment into every thunderstorm that passed through the city. I took to going out to the crumbling remains of the West Block for what had become something like a cleansing ritual for me. Out there, I never had to worry about anyone noticing what I was doing and declaring me imbalanced. I wouldn't be able to do anything for the city if no one would take me seriously.

I dealt with things that way for months. My days were spent working on increasingly frivolous projects for the Planning Committee or serving in my role as a member of the Oversight Committee. At night, I worked on proposals to solve the issues facing the lack of schools, law enforcement, taxation to keep everything running, and any number of things that cropped up and stuck in the gears of No. 7's laughable excuse for a government. I slept fitfully, plagued by nightmares and strange dreams, and subsisted mainly on meals and snacks pulled from the cases in Mom's bakery as I came and went. I screamed my frustrations into storms.

I had sunk into the morass of No. 7's useless system. I had lost my way and, worse than that, for the longest time I failed to even realize that I couldn't move.