Chapter 33
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Natsume warmed his hands in front if the stone fireplace in the brick house Kusami Hyuuga, an ancestor, had built and where his cousin-in-law, Rui Amane, had grown up. Rui had broken open a sick pack. He was on leave for a few days.

Rui, a skilled combat paramedic, had wanted to know all about the snakebites. He was the sort of a guy who understood catching poisonous snakes for fun. He'd already said – more than once – that he thought he'd like Mikan Sakura.

"Persona tell you?" Rui got two frosted glasses out of the freezer, which were his new wife's doing, since he was a drink-from-the-bottle type, and poured the beer. "Aoi's having a baby girl."

Natsume hadn't heard, but it seemed so natural, his little sister as the mother of a baby girl. Yet, less than a year ago, she'd convinces herself that she and Youichi would never make it. She immersed herself in her work for years. Both Hyuuga siblings had.

"I don't trust myself," Natsume said abruptly, staring into the fire Rui had started to take the chill out if the air.

Rui handed him an icy glass of beer. "With women or with babies?"

"Both."

"Who does? Just don't think too hard." Rui took a sip of his own beer a tossed another log onto the fire. "You wait as long to find the right woman as we have, it's easy to think too much."

"Where do you get the 'we'?"

Rui grinned at him. "Come on. You've all but carved little hearts onto the ridge over your Ph.D. in Kyoto."

"Jesus, Rui. Hearts." Natsume drank some of his beer, not really tasting it. "You and Yura. Any regrets?"

"Yeah. Loads. She'd never have gotten that goddamn puppy if I hadn't gone and done it. Puppy's related to Stump. She digs. Yura insisted it was a Persona thing, but it's a Stump thing."

Getting a serious answer out of Rui could be a chore. But he finally sat in front of the fire and got quite as he stared into the flames. He'd grown up in the sprawling house with an eccentric, artistic mother who'd ended up leaving it, fifty acres and an unexpected trust fund to him. Natsume had sat with him here, in front of the fire, countless times over the years, before Rui had decided to take up with his cousin.

Natsume finished his beer. "Rui?"

"I keep telling myself if Youichi can stand it, I can. He lost a child."

"What?"

Rui sighed. "Yura's expecting."

"A baby? Yura?"

"Yeah. A baby."

Natsume thought of his sister and cousin as mothers, thought of his own mother. Even now, after so many years after her death, he could hear her singing, feel her breath against his cheeks as she'd kiss him goodnight. And his father. The firefighter. The rock.

A wife, babies, puppies, a regular life – Natsume had rejected them all for himself. He told himself it was because of the work he did, but that was an excuse. Half the reason he'd chosen his work – half the reason he'd started volunteering his first day on the job for the most dangerous assignments – was because it gave him a reason to skirt any kind of commitment to having a family of his own. He was the eldest. That was enough.

"Congratulations," he told his cousin-in-law.

"Thanks. Yura hasn't told Persona yet." Rui grinned suddenly. "He might kill me yet."

Mikan stood shivering in a freezing store with soft wooden floors and a very fit silver-haired man who was piling a bench with everything she needed to hike Hokkaido in the middle of May. It was a frightening amount. A moisture-wicking lightweight top, a fleece pullover, moisture-wicking pants, a waterproof jacket, waterproof pants, wool sock. Day pack, water bottles. Boots. He dragged out six pairs of boots for her to try on while he added a flashlight, a compass, maps, waterproof matches, gloves and a hat to her pile.

"Why do I need a flashlight?" she asked. "I'm only doing a day hike."

"You never know."

"And the hat and gloves? It's spring."

He looked at her as if he just knew she was a mountain rescue in the making. "It's forty-one degrees on the ridge."

"Oh. Well. Make sure those are warm gloves."

She chose the cheapest pair of boots that passed his suitability test. "But, honestly, if there are no poisonous snakes on the ridge, then I'm good."

He didn't crack a smile.

Only when she signed her credit card bill did she notice the name of the place. Persona & Stumps'. "Are you Rei Serio?"

Now he smiled. "Yes, Dr. Sakura, I am."

"Just Mikan is fine, How -"

"You've been all over the news." His expression softened. "Everyone in Japan now knows what historical archaeology is."

She'd skipped much of the media coverage of her family and their relationship to Himemiya and Shizune Anju and the child they'd raised who was now prime minister, and Narumi and her mother's relationship with Shiki Masachika – and what the media and authorities had pieced together on his criminal activities.

She'd learned all she wanted to know about Narumi Anju, aka Reo Mouri. He'd disappeared from his home near Tokyo after his mother died when he was sixteen. No one had any idea what had happened to him until he turned up dead of a water snake bite in Northern Woods fifteen years later.

Mikan had lain awake one night, remembering a conversation she'd had with Himemiya and Shizune about the Huck Finn boy the maintained was living on the river. He won't let us help him. He won't let anyone help him.

Every reporter in Japan was back to trying to find the one clue that would tell them who are Prime Minister Narumi Anju's biological parents really were. There was nothing.

Mikan's relationship with him and the women who'd raised him was analyzed and dissected, her academic career and her various projects on the Anju house and the people who'd lived there were explored – but she'd refused all interviews. Her work on the Anjus was now in the hands of the Anju Trust. Where the house opened to the public as an historic site, she would visit it only as a tourist.

It was time for her to move on.

Persona cleared his throat, pulling her out of her thoughts. "You don't want to climb the ridge alone, especially not this time of year. Natsume's over at the house. He's been hiking every day since he got here. He's in good shape."

"They say he's good at tracking people. One of the best." Mikan handed over her signed receipt and gathered up two big bags of gear. They barely cleared her chin. She smiled at Natsume's uncle, the man who'd raised two orphans on his own. He was younger than her own mother. "Let him track me if he wants to."

She borrowed a pair of scissors and ducked into the changing room. She cut off all the tags of her new gear, then peeled off her travel clothes and put on the primary layer of her hiking clothes. She glanced in the full-length mirror. Not very attractive, but the'd do.

"Where is the ridge?" she asked Persona on her way out.

He blinked at her. "It's above you."

She gave him a reassuring smile. "I mean the trail."

He gave her directions to a brick house out of town – Yura and Rui's place, he said – and told her to turn left past it and follow the signs.

She did, and within an hour o tramping up the trail, she'd decided spring took way too long to get to Hokkaido.

It was just plain cold.

But the rock formations, the tinny new leaves fluttering in the midday sun, the crystal-clear streams and the views were incredible. As she climbed higher, Mikan stopped every few feet to look out at the valley and the surrounding mountains. It was a clear, bright, cool, magnificent day.

When she got closer to the tree line, the wind picked up, whipping her face, blowing across the gnarled, squat evergreens and struggling new grasses. She put on her hat and her gloves and bundled up in her fleece, thinking that in Kyoto, she'd be on the front porch, having barbeque and strawberry pie with her family. Persona had tossed a half-dozen power bars into her pack. They did not rival prune cake, fried apricot pies, squash casserole –

She stopped her train of thoughts and rested a moment on a rounded boulder in the middle of the trail.

When she'd left last night for Hokkaido, her mother hugged her for longer than usual. It was enough. Nothing more needed to be said between them. If the French police hadn't found them, she believed Reo's man would have killed them. But he'd given up without a struggle. Authorities were still interviewing him.

Shiki Masachika had intercepted her, courted her, stalked her. He had his own agenda, his own plan for obtaining a pardon – for wooing the girl he'd knows in college.

Her mother had been horrified, shaken, when she learned that the army captain who'd told her Shiki was facing prosecution in Japan for tax evasion had turned up murdered. That the man fishing on te dock that day in early April was Misaki's husband.

She simply hadn't known, she said.

Narumi Anju had arranged transportation to the Itami airport. Mikan's father had walked her to the car. "The worst part about being held captive was thinking not just that we'd never see you and Ruka again, but that you'd have to live with the knowledge of what happened to us." He's paused, his eyes shining. "I didn't want you to have that burden."

Mikan thought she understood what it was to want to spare someone else a burden, to want to ease a burden from someone else's shoulder – and that it couldn't always be done, not just because it was impossible, but because that experience was a part of who that person had become.

Which she didn't have to explain to her father. He knew.

She'd spent the night at an airport hotel, rented a car early that morning and arrived at Persona & Stumps' in time to spend a fortune.

She experienced a wobble of vertigo as she looked off one side of her boulder, down into the valley, much greener than it was up high. The wind whistled in the cracks and crevices of her granite surroundings.

She hoped Natsume would get on with tracking her down.

But his uncle had outfitted her for the conditions, and she could scoot down the trail, back amongst tall trees, if the wind picked up and she really started to feel the cold.

She took another bite of her power bar and washed it down with water, but she'd noticed a pleasant looking diner when she was in the village. She'd rather get off the ridge and eat there.

When she climbed down off her boulder and turned to resume her ascent, Natsume was there above her, sitting on a ledge as if she'd conjured him out of the thin mountain air.

He leaned back against another boulder and didn't say a word as she made her way up to him. He had scuffed boots, hiking pants, a black fleece – no hat, no gloves. And no gun, she thought. The horrors of the sniper attack and Reo's manipulations were slowly receding.

"How did you get ahead of me?" she said. "Did you drop out of a helicopter?"

"With an ex-pilot and a pararescueman in the family, I suppose I could have. But you'd have a helicopter."

"I don't know. With this wind, I might not have."

But he'd found a spot sheltered from the wind, still and quiet as she sat next to him.

"There's more than one way up here," he said.

"Then you weren't already here. You saw your uncle -"

"He said he did what he could to make sure you wouldn't be fined for recklessness when he had to come pluck you off the ridge. I told him not to underestimate you." He moved in closer, and she had the feeling if she scooted away from him even an inch, she'd fall off into oblivion. "It's easier to track a woman who wants to be found than a fugitive who doesn't."

"Well, I did narrow your options."

He smiled and touched the corner of her mouth with his thumb. "I've missed you."

"Good, because I wasn't sure if I was crazy –"

She caught his wrist in her hand and slipped her fingers into his. "Sometimes it's hard to know what of that week was real and what wasn't"

He kissed her fingers. "I was real."

"My family – it's wonderful to have Ruka home. He's doing well. And my parents are fine. They're resilient, already planning their return trip to Paris so that Dad can finish his project there."

"You Sakuras and your projects."

She laughed. "Yes, it's true."

"And the prime minister?"

"He was in Northern Woods yesterday."

"I saw the news."

"He's holding a press conference today in Tokyo. He's setting the record straight on the snake story and letting reporters exhaust every possible question they have about our relationship. Honestly, when the snake thing happened, I just wanted him to be okay. None of the rest mattered. I don't think it really did to him, either. People will think it did, but he had so much else on his mind besides who'd saved who from a water snake."

Natsume withdraw his hand from hers and skimmed his fingertips along her jaw, down the right side of her neck. "How's your snakebite?"

His touch had her feeling warm again. "All healed."

"Narumi Anju's surrogate daughter. I'll probably be guillotined for making love to you, almost getting you killed."

"You knew we were close when you threatened to arrest me that day in Tokyo."

"That's different." The threaded his fingers into her hair and kissed her softly. "We can't make love up here. We'd kill ourselves on the rocks."

She smiled. "Always impatient."

"Something we have in common when it comes to lovemaking, as I recall"

She stayed put, gazing out at the surrounding mountains. "I have something I want to tell you. Narumi mentioned your promotion."

"He is the boss."

"He said you're taking it. I'm thrilled for you."

"Thank you."

"There's this historic house in northern Osaka. It's not far from the Alice Secret Service headquarters."

He said nothing, just watched her with those incisive eyes, even redder now, she thought, against the northern Hokkaido sky.

"It's like the Anju house," she went on, "a combination of private, state and federal interests. Pristine. Lots of history."

"They need an historical archaeologist?"

She nodded. "It's an exciting project. People say the house is haunted."

"Not by a prime minister, I hope."

"Royal family, as it happens."

"Ah. Of course."

"I thought if I took on this project, then I'd be in the area and we could go on dates."

"We could have candlelight dinners," he said.

"That's right. And got ot movies and concerts."

"How long do we have to date?"

Her heart jumped. "I do see why people say you're impatient."

"I'm patient. I'm being patient now. I'm not throwing you over my shoulder and marching down to the nearest shelter, am I?"

It was a delicious thought, but she forced herself to stick to what she'd come to cold ridge to say "I have other offers. I don't want to crowd you in your new job. But I want us to find a way for us to be together that's good for both of us."

"It's what I want." He got to his feet, no indication that he was concerned he could take one wrong step and end up in a heap on the rocks. He offered her a hand, pulling her to her feet, kissing her softly. "It's all I've been thinking about since I left you."

"Everyone was convinced I'd fall for a charming intellectual."

"I'm charming."

She laughed. "That's the other thing people say about you. 'That Natsume Hyuuga, he's a charmer.'"

"Do I detect a note of sarcasm?"

"Damn it, Natsume, you know what I'm saying."

"You're saying that you thought you'd fall for some weak-kneed type. No one else did. They all thought you'd fall for –"

"A hard-driving, hard-ass agent?"

"Yeah." He grinned. "That about covers it. Can we make love after our dates? Or am I to deliver you to your door with a chaste kiss?"

"I like a little mystery and drama. Surprise me."

They climbed back down to the trail. Mikan held his hand tightly in hers. "Natsume – where –"

"Way out on the ridge." He's understood her question. She wanted to know where his parents had died. "Aoi took up nature photography partly to make her peace with our parents' death. Her photographs of the mountains tell her whole story. I went into catching bad guys. Get them off the street before they can hurt anyone else, themselves, the people who care about them."

"It's beautiful up here," Mikan said.

"It can be deadly."

"I'm glad I came. I've fallen in love with you in a very short time, and I can see now that part of the reason for it is here. Part of you is here."

"Part of me is about to freeze off." He winked at her. "Yura and Aoi have a log cabin they use as a studio a short walk from the trailhead. Yura got her husband with her for a few days – she won't be using it. We can have a candlelit dinner there."

Mikan nodded. "It sounds perfect. I'll get to meet her?"

"Oh, yeah. If I don't bring you by, she'll sneak in on us." He lifted her backpack off her shoulder and slipped it over his, adjusting the straps. Not looking at her. "Don't think I'm going repressed Yankee on you and ignoring that part about you falling in love with me."

"Well-"

He didn't let her go on. "Persona always said I'd fall like a rock for someone one of these days and I'd never see it coming." He looked at her now, his expression as soft, as tender, as she'd ever seen. "He was right."

"He'll love that, won't he?" She grinned at him. "About this log cabin. Does it have a fireplace?"

"Better yet, Miss Mikan. It has a bed."

A gust of wind pushed at her back, as if propelling her down the ridge, and Natsume laughed – really laughed – and showed her his shortcut.

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yumyumann, SunBabyBoss and xxFLaMiNG MiLCuTexx

Dear readers,

It's up to you now to envision Mikan and Natusme's future, I really intended to end this fanfiction this way so please don't hate me haha. I'm emotional right now haha I love you all! I would like to say a massive thank you to all of you for tuning in and supporting this fanfic all through out. I might also continue my other fanfiction called Hide and Seek.

XOXO,
Claire-chan143