A/N: this final section of "If They Stuck Together" takes place (mostly) after the events of the anime. Thanks for keeping with us, and hope you enjoy!

The world was newmade, tarnishing already. Eve walked bare through grasses that were waist-high and still soft. Twigs and pinecones had not yet fallen. They had not had time.

Eve wandered nowhere in particular. There was not much to do except appreciate how fresh everything was. There was a gleam to everything because none of it had existed before. Not even Eve. But now Eve was here, and alone, and he did not care.

"Oh, hi!"

Eve looked around. There was a tree in a clearing, which was unusual. The forests were thick and densely packed. This tree looked as if all the other plants had retreated from it. The tree was a strange, white pillar with twisted roots and tall, pale branches that stretched up into white leaves. In a world of color and light, it was bizarrely monochrome. Eve walked toward it slowly, pushing grasses aside.

Something the color of a ruby shone for a moment in the depths of the leaves.

"What are you?" Eve demanded.

There was a rustling. A red snake uncoiled from the treetop, head lowering until it was level with Eve's eyes. The snake had no end. It was a part of the tree, perhaps. Perhaps it was simply an unusually long, thin snake that had tucked its tail away somewhere and lost it. "Um. Nothing much. Just a guardian."

"Why are you talking to me? Nothing here talks."

"I don't know, you were just walking by and I thought I'd introduce myself."

"What are you guarding?" Eve asked, looking around.

"This tree."

"What's so special about it?"

The snake smiled. The inside of its mouth was pure white, and it had no fangs. "Did He tell you about the forbidden tree?"

Eve stepped closer and rested a hand on the bark. "Yeah. So this is it?"

The snake nodded, its entire body rippling with the movement. "This is it."

"And you guard it? Who're you keeping it from?"

The snake swayed side to side, a thoughtful look on its face. Eve noticed its eyes were as red as its body. "Not really keeping it from anyone, really. Actually, I'm supposed to get you to eat some of its fruit."

Eve backed away. "Oh really?"

"I'm not going to force you to try it!" The snake was shocked. "I just thought you should know. I mean, that's the whole point of the tree."

"What do you mean?"

"It's the tree of knowledge. Well, He actually said it was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but I don't really care about that last bit. It's mostly just a tree of knowledge." The snake nodded. "Knowledge isn't really good or evil, you know."

Eve frowned. "What is it then?"

"It's just knowledge. However you use it, that can be good or evil. Knowledge is neutral."

Eve eyed the tree. "Hm. I do want to know some things."

The snake lowered itself further and cocked its head to the side. "Really? Like what?"

"Where I came from. Why I'm here. What I'm supposed to be doing."

"Oooh, the big ones." The snake smiled again. "That's not really the kind of knowledge it provides."

"No?"

"No."

"What good is it then?"

The snake took a breath. "You are solitary here, right? You're alone?"

Eve frowned, confused. "What do you mean?"

"Have you ever met anyone like you?"

Eve blinked. "No. I haven't. I've seen a lot of animals here, sometimes alone but usually in packs. But I've never seen anything like me."

"There is an alternative. The tree provides this."

Eve looked at the tree carefully. "That's a strange thing for a tree to teach about."

"Well, it's all a bit metaphorical anyway."

"I thought it might be," Eve said. "All right, I'm curious. How do I get up there?"

"Here. I can lift you up." The snake began to encircle Eve with its body, but Eve ducked out of the loop and backed away.

"I don't think so. I don't need your help."

"You aren't tall enough to reach," the snake pointed out. "This isn't an easy tree to climb for a reason. It's supposed to be forbidden, remember?"

"Mmhmm." Eve looked at the ground for a moment, then looked up. "Here, let me step on your head."

"Sorry, what?"

"Let me step on your head. That'll get me closer to a branch."

The snake sighed. "Sheesh, this is shameful."

"Oh, quit whining." Eve held one foot off the ground and eyed the closest limb. "Ready?"

The snake unspooled until it was hovering beneath Eve's foot. "I guess—"

Eve stamped down and launched himself, latching onto the branch and not letting go even as he slammed into the trunk of the tree. His feet scrabbled at the bark until he felt the snake under his feet again, like a living twig. Eve pushed off and hauled himself over the branch.

"Would have been easier if you'd just let me lift you," the snake grumbled, drifting upwards as it recoiled into the tree. It nodded its head at what looked like an albino pear. "Here's one, over here."

"One what?" Eve asked, wiping blood off his legs where the tree's bark cut him.

"The fruit."

Eve squints. "Are you sure this is safe?"

The snake blinked at him slowly. "It won't make you sick."

Eve reached out a hand and twisted the pear until it popped off the branch and sat heavy in his hand. There was a faint fuzz on the skin, and Eve breathed in the smell of it before he took a bite. It smelled like thunderstorms and green growing things after rain. It tasted sweet. Its flesh was a strange purple.

Eve knew he was alone. He had known it, but for the first time he thought, There is no one for me to talk to about existence. There is no one to remember me. There is no one for me to hold or to hold me. There is no one to laugh with. There is no one who will care when I am gone.

He took another bite, because he had begun this quest for knowledge and he was going to see it through.

Eve knew what death was. It was a cessation of being. It was the ending of something unique. It was the loss of memories and a perspective on the world. It was loneliness.

He took a third bite and realized he was crying when the taste of the fruit was more salt than sweetness.

Eve knew he was wrong. No one else in the world was like him. No one else had a name; stood on two legs with two arms and only patches of hair; or spoke the way he did, in his own tongue. He looked down at the fruit. There seemed to be so much of it left. It had healed over where he bit it, regenerating new harsh truths.

Eve let it drop to the ground and covered his face with his hands.

There was a faint cough from the snake. "Um."

Eve shook his head, eyes still hidden. "Fuck you. That was… That isn't knowledge. That's torture."

"I'm sorry."

"What was the point of that? Why would you want to teach me about loneliness?" Eve pulled his face out of his hands and screamed, "It was forbidden for a reason!" Then he stopped.

Standing below him was another human being. He was as pale as the tree where Eve was still perched, and a mark as red as the snake wound around him. He had one hand buried in his hair and he looked as miserable as Eve felt.

"Where the fuck did you come from?" Eve snapped, heart hammering. He swung himself out of the tree and landed in a crouch front of the other human, coming up with his hands fisted.

"I'm really sorry," the human said, and Eve blinked.

"You sound like the snake," he whispered.

"I kind of am," the human said. "I'm sorry."

"Why are you here, then?"

"I'm the other side," the other human said. "I'm the opposite of loneliness. I'm companionship."

And Eve said, "I don't know what that fucking means."

And the other human smiled at him suddenly and said, "That's okay, you'll learn."

::

And Nezumi wakes, alone, curled on the floor of what had once been his forest. He hears the wind in the trees, just like all of his oldest memories. He feels the grass, tall enough to cover him. Unlike the landscape of his dream, though, this forest had suffered. The trees have only had twelve years to regrow. There are ragged saplings sprouting from the charred, collapsing bodies of the old giants. He looks around at it all. It's not what he remembers. He doesn't remember a lot, admittedly, because he had been what, four? He was young and it was something he had to forget about in order to keep moving. Now he's trying to bring it back. All because a fucking golden wasp showed up and…

Does he owe her? Is that why he is back here? Is he trying to thank her for saving Shion?

It just felt right to come back. It felt like a pilgrimage. It was the opportunity for closure. Really, though, now that he sees the state of the Eden that haunted his nightmares, it feels like his connection to this place was severed when he watched it burn and heard his family screaming while Nezumi fled. He'd had a different name here, and he'd been a child. He hasn't felt like a child since then. He's felt like a machine. Everything he did was to survive and gather information. Now, though, all his information-gathering has come to an end. It's been months since he's had to worry about No. 6 finding him. It's a mass of rubble now, though he had to admit that it still looked cleaner than West Block when he'd turned his back on that fucking city and its fucking problems and… He'd turned his back on Shion, too.

Nezumi sits up and pinches the bridge of his nose hard. The dream is fragments now, images of red on white and lessons learned, but Nezumi can't remember the lessons. Emptiness and a sense of smallness, that's all he can conjure. The loneliness had only vanished when someone else had… had… Shit.

Nezumi has read a lot of books. Shakespeare used symbolism like a sledgehammer sometimes and like a feather duster other times, and Nezumi can read between the lines on both kinds of metaphors. Dream interpretation isn't a difficult next step. The theme is staring right at him, albino, with red eyes and a warm smile.

"Fucking stupid," Nezumi mumbles, laying back down. He shuts his eyes. The wind rustles the trees. It sounds like annoyance.

The ground is harder than Shion's bunkbed. Dreams are darker here. There is a sadness to this place that is almost crippling. This isn't home anymore.

Nezumi stands. He takes one last breath in what once was his forest. Then he shoulders his backpack and starts walking. He has a ways to go until he makes it home. After the first few silent miles, after he leaves the forest and its dead behind him, he starts to hum. Then he starts to sing.

::

Shion drops his shoulder bag beside his mother's chair so he can kiss her cheek. She's chatting with Inukashi and bouncing the baby that Inukashi insists is named Shion because that's who's to blame for giving Inukashi another goddamn mouth to feed. Inukashi is consuming food like there's still not enough to go around.

Karan smiles at her son. "Long day?"

Shion nods. "Everyone still thinks I know what happened."

"You do, though," Karan winks.

"They don't have to know all the details. Besides, Inukashi was there and doesn't even believe half of it."

Inukashi swallows half a muffin and glares at him. "I believe a lot of it! I saw you—" Inukashi pauses, glancing at Karan "—get hurt, after all. And then you were fine! That's pretty damn weird. I just don't think a giant bee possessed your old girlfriend."

"Safu."

"Bless you." Inukashi engulfs a small pie.

"Her name was— never mind," Shion sighs. "Mom, I'm going to bed."

Karan checks the sky outside. It's already dark, but it's wintertime. That doesn't mean anything. She leans back to check the bakery clock instead. It reads just past 8pm. "So early?"

"I'm tired."

Karan frowns. "Are you still having bad dreams?"

Shion considers before he nods. The dreams aren't nightmares exactly, because he can't remember them when he wakes up. He just knows that he was dead. He dies in his dreams, over and over, and then he experiences whatever came next. It leaves him feeling lonely. He doesn't crawl into Karan's room like he did when he was child, though. He doesn't want his mother to know that he almost didn't make it back alive.

"It'll be okay," Karan tells him, but baby Shion wakes up then and starts wailing. Karan makes a soothing noise while Inukashi finishes off the pie and burps.

"Pass him," Inukashi says. Karan hands baby Shion over, a hand supporting his head. Inukashi drags him in and smirks as the baby immediately quiets down. "Still dunno why he does that. Maybe when he starts talking he can tell us."

"He loves you," Karan says. Inukashi winces and starts to explain why that's a stupid idea. Shion leaves them to it and staggers down the stairs. He rolls himself into bed fully dressed. His clothes won't be pristine for the meeting tomorrow, but fashion isn't as important as being warm. The workers still can't get heat to this part of the city and the basement holds the chill more than the warm bakery upstairs, where the ovens are almost always running.

He hears his mother knock on his door, then open it. "Shion, sorry, you forgot your—" Karan stops.

Shion rolls over and blinks at her. "Hmm?"

"I thought you slept in the top bunk."

"Oh." Shion rolls again so his back is to the door. "The bottom bunk was closer."

Karan is silent. Shion feels his face heating up. His mom is always hard to fool. He listens to her set down his bag gently, knowing Shion's computer is inside, and then she closes his door. She stands outside it for a long moment before he hears her on the stairs. She and Inukashi talk some more. Shion tries to sleep.

Noises seem loud tonight, his thoughts even louder. He has a million things to do to improve the new city, which some people want to call West Six and others want to call Number Block but most want to call something new. Shion doesn't have any good ideas on that one. He remembers a city called Venice where a merchant lived, or a city called Verona where two friends parted and two star-crossed lovers met at a party, but those cities aren't real. They were settings in plays. The new city has to be somewhere real. Shion thinks about this for an hour or two, growing more and more delirious but no closer to sleep. Insomnia is new. He thinks it's his mind's way of avoiding the bad dreams.

Shion can feel himself teetering on the edge of unconsciousness when he hears a creak. It takes his body a painfully long time to realize that he's in danger. Adrenaline only kicks in when he feels pressure at his back, the sense that someone is trying to grab him from behind. He rolls out of bed, hits the floor on all fours, spins to face the culprit, and punches at the pale face that has crept to the edge of his bed. He's about to scream for Karan to run for it when he hears a soft, sarcastic voice saying, "I'm amazed. I taught you something after all."

Shion feels his heartbeat throughout his entire body. "Nezumi?"

"Yeah. Shit, that almost made my nose bloody." Nezumi checks his upper lip. "Yeah, almost. You gotta practice punching some more."

"Nezumi?"

Nezumi looks up at him, still crouching on the bottom bunk. "Yeah?"

"Am I dreaming this?"

"Um." Nezumi looks confused for a moment until sarcasm replaces it. "Do you often dream about me?"

"Well… no," Shion admits. It surprised him at first. Shion thought that all he would be able to remember was Nezumi. Instead, he remembers dying. Even if it made him feel the absence like never before, Shion would rather dream of Nezumi than death.

Nezumi sits back, keeping his head ducked so it doesn't hit the underside of the top bunk. He does this with dignity somehow, and a long-suffering expression. "I'm heartbroken. Why're you still living in your mom's basement?"

"The new center of town is close and I don't want her living alone," Shion says. "Why are you here?" Nezumi looks as if he doesn't want to answer many questions. Too bad. Shion needs a lot of answers.

"I came from the forest," Nezumi says finally. "I had to see it."

Shion bites his lip. "Oh. How was it?"

Nezumi is looking at something far away, though it seems like he's just staring at the wall. "I wanted to see what had happened. I wanted to see if it was the same as I remembered… It was stupid. Of course it changed." Nezumi frowns at himself. "Idiot."

"So why did you come back?" Shion asks after a silent moment.

Nezumi blinks and refocuses on him. "It didn't feel… It wasn't home anymore."

"Okay, so now what? Are you going to try and find somewhere new to call home?"

Nezumi has a faint line between his eyebrows. He doesn't look like he's going to answer. Shion feels like so much time has passed. Nezumi doesn't know that Shion had to put a city back together, reveal harsh truths and keep other ones a secret. Shion had to tell the world what had happened at No. 6 so it would not happen again, and he's still not sure the world is listening to him or the people of West Block that he asks to tell their stories. Shion is lying and speaking out for the people of what used to be No. 6. Nezumi set out to destroy something that Shion is attempting to reconstruct. Maybe he's back to do it again…

"I came back because this," Nezumi waves a hand that takes in the four walls around them, the bunk bed behind them, the window that Shion never brought himself to lock, the bakery upstairs, and Shion himself, "is home. I like it here."

"Even though it's No. 6." Shion's heart is beating very loudly.

"It's not No. 6 anymore. It's gonna be something else. I don't know what yet, but it will be." Nezumi shrugs, then clears his throat. "Um."

Shion realizes that Nezumi is uncomfortable. This is new. "What?"

"Is. Um. Is it okay if I stay here?"

Shion raises his eyebrows. "You never asked before. Why now?"

"I mean. Stay here for…more than one night. I don't have to, I can find—"

Shion sighs and Nezumi stops talking. There is snow still frozen in Nezumi's hair and on the shoulders of his jacket. Shion brushes it away, then leaves his hands on Nezumi's shoulders. "Yes, you can stay."

It's a hello kiss this time.

::

five years ago

Karan kisses him on the top of his head, her smile exhausted but her eyes still loving. "Good night, Shion. Sleep well."

"You too." Shion holds on to the wall to make sure he doesn't tumble down the steep stairs. They're going to take some getting used to. A lot of things are going to take some getting used to. He has a new school where the books are actual books, not computer screens, and he's already seen more crudely drawn pictures of human genitalia than he's viewed in his life. The plant genitalia is ten years out of date. Shion tried to correct it but the teacher told him not to draw in the textbooks. There are a lot of mixed signals in his new school.

The bakery is new, too. His mother had sat in their hotel room, looked him in the eye, and said, "Did you help that boy?"

Shion said, "Yes." He did not cry and he did not apologize. He was very careful to do neither. He can't feel regret for what he did.

"All right," Karan said. "We were living on your scholarships but I'm going to have to get a job now. Help me think, what am I good at?"

That was the only conversation they ever have about Nezumi, or VC103221 as she probably knows him. Karan called a few people; took Shion with her to talk quietly with several solemn, well-dressed bankers; and they bought the bakery the next day. Shion is sleeping on a mattress on the floor, trying to figure out what his life is going to be like now. It's thrilling, actually. No. 6 no longer has a plan for him. Shion doesn't have a plan either, admittedly, but at least he has the possibility of coming up with one on his own. He brushes his teeth and puts on his pajamas, then lies on his mattress on the floor and thinks about what he can do now that No. 6 does not own him.

There is a tapping noise. Shion looks around, then realizes that it's coming from his window. He lies back down, but the tapping continues. A quiet voice mutters, "Hey," muffled through the glass.

Shion leaps out of bed and yanks the window open. "Nezumi!"

"Sh! Keep it down!" Nezumi looks behind him, then crams his legs through the window, almost kicking Shion in the head. Shion tries to grab his knees to help him out, but Nezumi purposefully kicks him in the head this time. Shion backs away, holding his throbbing cheek. Nezumi lands on all fours and spins to face Shion, eyes narrowed. "What're you doing way out here?"

"We had to move," Shion says, grinning at the fact that this boy made it back alive. "I thought I wouldn't see you again! How are you? Is it bad, still running from the authorities?"

"I'm fine," Nezumi says shortly. He's peering into the corners of the room now. "Is this a dungeon?"

"It's the basement to my mom's new bakery," Shion laughs.

"Dingy. Anyway, I um." Nezumi stops and frowns. He doesn't seem to know what to say next.

"Do you have somewhere to stay now?" Shion asks after a moment.

"What? Yeah! I do!" Nezumi is defensive now, glaring at Shion.

Shion raises his hands, trying to keep the other boy's anger at bay. "Okay! Okay! I just wondered if you wanted to stay here!"

"I don't need your fucking charity," Nezumi spits. "I'm fine on my own." He darts back to the window.

"Language," Shion says, and then adds, "My window's always open" as Nezumi hauls himself over the windowsill.

Nezumi pauses for a moment, twists around so he can see Shion, then says, "Okay." He slides back in. His bare feet slap the concrete floor. "I just have to rest for a bit. It's a long walk back. This'll do for tonight. I'll be out of here in the morning, though."

"Never worry about that," Shion says, but Nezumi shakes his head and drags Shion's discarded sweatervest and jeans into a pile. He curls up in a ball and sighs. Shion watches him in puzzlement, then lies down on his own mattress. He listens to the sound of another person falling into unconsciousness beside him, and drifts to sleep with a faint smile on his face.

THE END

A/N: It's been awesome! Thanks for all the support, and we hope you had as much fun reading this as we had writing it.