*hides behind computer* Don't kill me?

Actually, if you want to redirect your murderous feelings toward me, please send a heartfelt PM or a nice shout out review to the wonderful Don'tAskAlice and the ever inspiring archangelBBQ. If it weren't for them, I would've given up on writing and generally existing a looooong time ago. The former kicked my ass repeatedly until I got this chapter done, and the latter graciously took time from a beautiful work of art called Beneath the Lilac Tree (and a number of other works, so when you're done here...) to keep me from banging my head against a wall over ONE SCENE. I'm serious, I agonized. So spread the love, loyal readers!

Getting right to it then,

Disclaimer: The extent of my Japanese is a few words commandeered from anime and fanfiction and Google. Ergo, I cannot claim Ghost Hunt as mine. Duh

Warnings: Mentions of sexual assault (nothing graphic, but you are forewarned for feels), a fair bit of cursing, LOTS of angst, and Lin's long awaited revenge

Spoilers (duh): Should I just stop writing this out? It's pretty obvious. Only spoils the anime that left us hanging. Sigh

Quick Note: Nothing really comes to mind here, so enjoy!

Chapter Six

His mouth opened and closed several times. Up, down, popping a little with each articulation of bone against bone. Each time he focused on the pop, not the words he was desperately trying to find. Not the flood of pure, unconfused, unprecedented fear that webbed across his insides like a new membrane. …Gene? GENE.

"You're—." He gagged the conjunction and swallowed it. "You're still here."

His not-reflection, not anymore, smirked teasingly. "Very astute, little brother."

Part of him thought I'm not the younger now and he'd never loathed himself more. Only sixteen. Innumerable responses filtered through his mind. Question, rage, confusion, but nothing seemed to make its way down to his throat. Afraid to be eviscerated by his idiotic shock. He'd been nothing but idiotic, tonight. Too distracted to search for connections in the case he was supposed to have solved by now. Too weak to identify what irrational barrage of something kept tugging him away from normalcy. Emotions, that's the word, those underfed beings shriveled up inside him. Too astounded to speak to the brother he'd never expected to see again. Stupid.

"Why?" the monosyllabic question skid up his throat like sandpaper, but at least he could think, if he were feeling generous enough to call the indiscriminate flood of words in his head thought.

Another contortion of the face, and he'd almost forgotten—Jesus—how expressive Gene was. Had been. "Can't say, really. I couldn't reach you before." At Naru's unheeded confusion he added, "The Line was…jumbled." A careless shrug. "I suppose it righted itself. Though I'm not sure why I'm suddenly all…Lewis Carroll."

Silence, because Naru lost his words again. Gene was shifting uncomfortably, sort of waggling his fingers to his own face in a good impression of a madman, and he could almost hear the swish of denim against itself as his legs brushed each other. He thought of touching the glass, some silly part of him praying to feel Gene's hand on his fingertips.

"You know, because I'm in a looking glass?" He eyes traced the simple plastic frame with wide-eyed distaste. "A mirror is the same thing right? I thought forever it might be more like a kaleidoscope. I'm pretty sure it's a mirror, though. Otherwise my joke would've been misplaced…"

His lack of response had prompted a flood of random babbling. Gene had always done that, perfectly in control of himself to wait, but he preferred to flutter uselessly if only to spark Naru's thoughts by the irritation.

"It's a mirror," he answered shortly, and Gene grinned.

"Fantastic. My humor was well placed, then."

Naru sighed in exasperation. Nothing about this was normal. But if Gene wanted to pretend that it wasn't a shock so violent that taking three bullets to the knee would be a pleasure compared to this then he'd indulge him. As if he really had a choice.

"Your humor is never well-placed, but that's beside the point. Why are you here?"

He tossed him an exaggeratedly withered expression. "If you'd been pay attention instead of scooping your unhinged jaw from the floor, you'd know that—."

"I know the ridiculous evasion you fed me," he interrupted forcefully, anger grating at his healing tongue. Building rapidly. "I want to know why you're here. I found your body. I brought you home. Why are you still here?" Only the scraps of his rationality kept him from screaming the words, the accusation. But children and team and Mai would be sleeping. His anger plateaued then, a steady simmer so it wouldn't boil over. He needed those scraps, needed them so he wouldn't keep missing things, and if he didn't control himself they'd be destroyed. Gene's smile faltered.

For just one moment, his face hardened, eyes burning and roiling with a thousand emotions Naru couldn't begin to read. He looked much older, more like me, and tired. So tired. But he swiped them away and smiled again. "I have my reasons, Noll. Trust me."

He could fight him. He should. The rage and the grief and helplessness mingled into some pointless beast that would never stop clawing at him until he released it, yet if he did he'd lose something more vital to him. His tenuous grip on rationality. His control. His brother. He kept his mouth shut.

"I'm in Mai's dreams again. Before you get mad," Gene held up his hand in placation, "I asked her not to tell you."

It wasn't necessary. He was too exhausted to bother summoning new anger for something so trivial. Of course she didn't tell him. Mai had the tendency to hide unpleasant secrets. He would've been more surprised had she been entirely open with him.

"Now I haven't the faintest why I'm still her guide. She doesn't really need me anymore, you know?"

That cruel part of him smoldered. She doesn't need anyone. "She has improved greatly, yes," he agreed almost smugly, as if he had anything to do with it, then started, because he'd acknowledged her change for the first time to someone other than himself. His brow furrowed unconsciously. How arrogant.

"I'll try calling her again. Get more information?" he stated his plan with all the inflection of a question. Odd, since Gene never really doubted himself. He was much like his brother in that regard. They were infallibly aware of their own abilities. His experience told him to be cautious, to harbor that change and catalogue any more that could even hint at a degradation of his mind. His connection told him to wait, not Gene. Besides, it wasn't himself whom Gene was doubting. Noll would almost rather it was.

"Yes," as if Gene needed his permission to contact Mai. His stomach clenched painfully.

Silence lulled between them, and for once Noll hated it. Without the steady rhythm of Gene's adopted accent, the near mindless wandering of his thoughts, he was forced to see the situation for what it was; miserable. Talking to my brother. My brother who is dead. My brother who will never be older than sixteen. Forced to see the shuddering parts of himself that would never quite fit together. He wanted to sleep.

"So…" Gene rocked in the mirror, blurring a little at the edges. His heart stuttered and he reached for him, only to realize that no, he wasn't fading. He was shuffling his feet. He kept his hand to the glass anyway. "I hear Evie's in Japan now. How's that going?"

"She didn't know," he blurted unthinkingly, watching his finger against the dark green of Gene's shirt. The last shirt he'd been wearing.

"What?"

He chuckled darkly, listening to the sound of his voice as if he were far away. Yes, far, far from this absurdity, back in his detachment, his logic and his ghost-hunting. Away from his brother, the ghost. "No one bothered to tell her. I didn't tell her. She slapped me."

"Noll, you're not making any sense. No one told her what?" There was desperation in his voice, true emotion, not that crafted fiction he'd been feeding him. He already knew what the words implied, it was just a matter of making the connection. Naru looked at his face and found his wide eyes as he understood. "Fuck, are you serious?"

He nodded, shutting his eyes and remembering the crack of her hand across his cheek. Centering himself around the memory. "She seems alright, but then, I haven't really spoken with her since she arrived."

"Jesus, Noll." Gene looked at his feet, face skewed in an expression he'd never seen before. And it sunk and stung as he realized it could only belong to someone remembering their own death. He wondered if his face ever twisted like that too. "Tell her I'm sorry."

"As if it's your fault. I should've told her."

Gene sighed. It was a broken sound. "Why didn't you?"

"I don't know."

A pause, heavy and leaden and heaving. "I'm sorry Noll."

He took the words and swallowed them. Don't be, he thought, and maybe it travelled the Line, maybe it didn't. The dissolution within him had begun to cease and settle, bit by shattering bit, leaving him cold and empty and watching Gene. His years-old reflection was fading around the edges. Not long now.

"I'm sorry too, Gene," he breathed, his forehead falling against the glass. I miss you, a weak, slugging thought like a hiccup and it stuttered selfishly in his head. Surprising him, unwarranted and unprompted and probably the most honest he'd ever been with himself.

"Noll…" his voice was wispy and transient, half-gone but he was anguished and clinging to the resignation on his brother's face. Across the Line, I miss you too. So much. Noll shuddered. Such futility. There was nothing to be done. He could see the past, but not change it.

"You need to rest. Find me again if...when you can," he said numbly, looking up to find only his outline lingering.

I'll see you soon, little brother. I love you. Clear in his head and ringing with defeat, and Naru was suddenly staring at his true reflection, aged and sagging. Pitiful.

His fist cracked the glass.

Mai shot up in her bed.

"I'm sorry. Did I wake you?"

Her heart thumped wildly in her throat. A voice, whose voice….woman…not Masako…who?...Evie, right. Evie. She sat up slowly, one hand on her head to guide its suddenly heavy, boulder-like weight. A scream. She'd heard a scream. Well, heard wasn't accurate, so much as she had felt it. Could still feel it ringing in the hollow of her throat, deep and masculine and so achingly unfamiliar that she knew exactly to whom it belonged.

Naru.

"Are you alright?" Evie was standing in an awkward position, hands at the waistband of her jeans, like she'd paused in the process of undressing, attention rerouted to Mai. She could almost laugh, except that scream. Her diaphragm stuttered with her deep breath, clenching painfully so the air rushed from her throat with a little croak. Poor Naru. This case was just…too much. It wasn't even the case, at least not entirely. Just everything else. She couldn't identify it really, though part of her wanted to be vindictive and blame the stranger two feet from her bed.

"I'm fine." Lie. "Nightmare." She'd gotten better at dismissing people. A simple 'don't ask' bite to her tone and no questions asked. Something she learned from Naru, actually. Evie seemed to swallow it easy enough, turning her back and tugging her plain t-shirt overhead. Mai watched the skin of her back with detached, unregistering blankness, too lost in trying to find a distraction within her head to notice one right in front of her eyes.

It took her a minute to realize what she was looking at. The unnatural black lines looked more like poisonous blood than ink, twisting and spilling in spidery veins across her skin. Mai wanted to throw up, to scream, flashes of I'll kill him in bleeding black, dripping sun, crying purple flowers. Sick, sick, dying, the voice, her heart, her powers, shrieked. Then her brain connected with her mind, and the fear shrank and left her shivering.

A tree. Just a tree, in swirling, crossing, curling lines. Few leaves beautifully placed. She thought, maybe, the lines were too patterned. That they formed shapes she didn't know. The roots twisted just below her waist band too deliberately. Yes, she was certain now. Along the trunk, she found a name. Naoki Kazuo.

"What does your tattoo mean?" she asked before her brain could recognize her own voice. Distraction, that voice said, and she relaxed infinitesimally.

Evie paused again, this time with her shirt caught around her shoulders so her arms looked like featherless wings. "It's my family tree. In a manner of speaking." She chuckled to herself, and Mai got the impression that she was missing a very old joke. "My surname means honest tree, actually. Or something to that effect."

In a half-graceful scramble, she released her arms, the nightshirt flopped around her neck as a scarf. Her hand came around her hip to point at the half-hidden roots. "I don't know if you've studied English. It may be hard to see it if you didn't."

"I'm not very good at it." But even as she spoke, she could make out a few letters, G, e, maybe a w.

"You should have Naru tutor you." There was a smirking quality to that statement that Mai chose to ignore. "This is my biological mother's name. Gwendolyn."

Her hand moved along the trunk. "My adopted parents, Dahlia and Kazuo." Up along a few branches to the left. "My grandparents and my aunt." Hopping over one, to the furthest reaching branch. "Lin-san."

"Does it actually say Lin-san?" she couldn't help but tease. She'd think that after 'the Incident', they'd be on a given name basis. Especially since the branch crosses over her heart, she thought with a sort of moved amusement.

"It could hardly say anything else," she offered back, hand skipping to the next branch. "Luella and Martin."

Mai felt a pang in her chest at the names. The last time she'd seen Naru's parents had been when Gene…his body was found. Luella crumbled at the slightest touch, forgoing her surviving son to sink into the arms of a stranger offering comfort. Mai could still feel the tears seeping into her shirt. She just realized it now, that they wouldn't look at him. Either ofthem.

No. You're supposed to be distracted.

She didn't notice Evie's hand hover over the final branch, a long, leaf-covered limb that split off into two at the end. "Noll and Gene."

English names like a shock to Mai's system, but she knew them too well. Naru and Gene. Two ends curling in opposite directions, but born of the same beginning, the same branch. She smiled, then let it fall quickly, ashamed even if she wasn't sure why. Maybe because she never thought of them that way. Naru and Gene. A collective, two separate beings that existed together. No, it was always Naru. Gene. Naru. Gene. Separate always in her mind. Gene the friend, the mentor. Naru the boss, the…she couldn't really label it yet. She'd never thought about them that way, because she'd never let herself think about the implication. That there was a Naru and Gene, and there was only one now. Except to her.

"So that's my tattoo," Evie finished anticlimactically, tugging her shirt into place with fumbling speed. Mai shook the sadness from her thoughts and looked more closely at the woman preparing to run away. Funny, for an empath, she had the distinct feeling that Evie wasn't very good with emotions. At least her own. "I've kept you up long enough."

"Evie?"

She didn't turn around. "Yes?"

Pressed voice. Trying not to cry. Mai knew this agitation too well. She'd seen it pop up, an insect trapped by a half-opened window, too many times this week. Despite the ever-present punch to her gut, despite that small part of her that wanted to scream at Evie for existing, the part that didn't trust her, Mai reached for her hand, tugged her slowly until she sank limply onto the bed beside her. Even when she started shaking with suppressed tears, when Mai felt her own eyes burn, she held her hand and squeezed it, the way her mom used to when they visited her father's grave. The way Naru did in the hallway, when he comforted her for his own pain.

"I see Gene. Not often, but he shows up in my projections sometimes. He's my spirit guide," she said simply, unsure of what she was offering but somehow knowing there was something helpful in the words. Evie was leaning into her a little bit, and it was a mark of how desensitized she was, that she didn't tense at her seizing stomach.

"Would you tell him something for me?" she asked quietly, and Mai felt a sudden rush of unbidden affection. She had yet to hear Evie's voice so small, so free of that distant quality, like every time she spoke she was keeping you a foot away.

"Of course." She hadn't gotten to mourn with the others. She was alone, in a way. Naru's grief was a constant sphere, a weight in his pocket. Hers was a fresh blister on the bottom of her foot, burning with every step forward until it callused. Mai would give her this, if it would help.

"Tell him I'm sorry. I miss him. I love him. I'll look out for Nature Boy," she rattled them off without rhythm, speaking the words as they came to her. Honesty in its purest form and Mai held her hand a little tighter.

"Of course." A repetition to the close and Evie exhaled heavily.

They sat together, one plucking at the edges of her fresh wounds where something not vital, but desperately wanted had been torn away, the other mourning that she'd never had it to begin with. Whatever had woken Mai fluttered at the edges of her thoughts, a distant memory that she wanted to cling to. Naru. His scream had faded. There was quiet now, the filled to bursting kind. Mai liked it. So much not-noise meant life happened in cacophony during the day. This was a time for rest, something her mom had told her when she was little and afraid of the dark, not for fear. She wondered if Naru feared the night, if Lin and Evie and Gene and Madoka were running from it. If they feared resting as ghosts did.

Evie let go of her hand. "Thank you, Mai-san," she murmured solemnly, and then she left, rushing headlong into the dark.

Koujo sat at the monitors, laptop abandoned in favor of a slumped position that he'd never let the others see. He was tired, exhausted probably, like the rest of them. Evie felt tired too. Emotionally drained, and the irony wasn't lost her. Her muscles were thick and heavy with that self-imposed sluggishness of sadness as she all but collapsed in his lap, folding herself in his arms as if she were ten instead of twenty two.

"I miss him," was all the explanation she managed, fingers curled in the collar of his wilting white button-down. White like he'd worn at his grandfather's funeral. His chest filled beneath her and she could feel the air reach down inside him. His heartbeat was steady, as controlled as the rest of him. Two years was a long time without him. Without any of her family. And to think, she hadn't even felt the time pass, while they carried every second as a brick on their throats.

"Me as well," he hummed, his arms falling around her to pull her close. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

She couldn't answer. Not with a croaked-out it wasn't your job, not with an I'm fine now, because part of her was angry still, angry at them all for keeping this from her, maybe angry for being alone now. But that was a selfish thought. She wasn't alone. New, but not alone, not bearing the weight of it the way Noll and Luella and Martin would. Yet she was a child, and she felt it anyway. The isolation in not knowing. Now the isolation in knowing too late.

"I love you," she gave instead, reaching so she could kiss the hand that slid up her arm.

He didn't speak, but he looked for her face with his hands, offered his eyes when she relented, and smiled. His hair was tucked back behind his ear so she could see the silver bark of his iris in the white light of the monitors, the colorless blue of the other that could almost mimic its twin from the shadows. Almost, except for the miniscule fog over his pupil, the blatant unseeing of its focus, or maybe seeing something no one would understand but him. She curled her palm around his cheek, thumb under his always hidden eye, and he kissed her once, touched the smile to her misery-pliant lips. No more thinking tonight. No more feeling either.

"Old man," she murmured, mind shutting down one—gone— thought to the—two years—next , blanking to let her slip away, to let her fall limp like a blanket across his lap.

His arms slackened into slings as she retreated into sleep, where she could wallow into that necessary nothingness he found himself craving too.

"Silly girl."

His hand finally stopped bleeding. The skin of his knuckles was shredded, but he'd plucked the glass out piece by piece, wrapped it tightly in gauze, and took care of it even if part of him wanted it to fester. He wondered who'd notice the half-assed bandage first. Lin probably, with his eagle eyes, but the doctor, Ayako, was surprisingly observant. In either event, there'd be a flood of questions that he wouldn't answer, their refined sense of drama bleeding profusely into their accusations until they grew tired of their own unrequited voices. Then he would retreat into his hastily scrawled handwriting, his little collection of thoughts that never included himself.

It was almost sad, how predictable he'd become.

"Are you going to stand there much longer? I should look at your hand." Lin first, and through a camera no less. The radio at his side hummed quietly as if in preparation, ready for the lecture he could already hear. Naru was tempted, sorely tempted to keep standing in his exact position, just to spite the man he called teacher. But he was too tired for vindictiveness.

His footsteps were quiet, even in the cavernous foyer, and all he could think was you walk like a cat. Who said it first, Evie or Gene? They shared a brain, or at least a mischief. He could hardly tell, in those moments, whether Evie was speaking through his brother, or his brother speaking through her. A mischief, and an uncanny ability to linger in his thoughts like a stain.

"Sit." He and Lin shared a stoicism. His command was gentle for all that it knifed through his memories with a pleasing finality. Naru hadn't really noticed the carpet of the base swallowing the impact of his hard-leather shoes.

He found a chair and sank into it as much as his body would cooperate. Lin was characteristically silent, or perhaps it was uncharacteristic. Not a single word about the hollow look on his face or the scuff on his shoe or even how he'd managed to dice his knuckles. Perhaps Lin had seen his little break from sanity on the monitor. More than likely, he didn't really care. His hands made quick work of the wrappings, revealing the ugly, bruised wound like a bunching of gaping mouths.

"You'll have to replace Hamasaki-san's mirror." So he had seen it, at least that much of it. "And her cabinet." Or all of it. He considered feeling ashamed, but then he'd be lying to himself even more.

"I always detract the cost of damage from our bill," he rattled of complacently, wincing as Lin plucked at a miniscule piece of glass he'd missed. Even half-blind he missed nothing. "You know that."

"Noll…" Lin tried, but his mind was already gone from the fresh gauze wrapping expertly around his hand, the stiff bandage on top because one or more of his knuckles was probably fractured. He sought a distraction, and his mind always found one. Beside the desk was an armchair, some gaudy floral pattern that had to have originated in the United States, overstuffed and worn the way chairs in waiting rooms always looked a little dirty. A person curled along the back of the chair, legs hooked over the arm and dangling shoeless and sleep-lax. Evie must have joined Lin sometime in the night, for some reason he'd never understand. Because Noll forgot, the most stoic man he'd ever met could provide enough tenderness to be a lover.

Lin's hands had stopped, satisfied with their work, and he staggered from his chair towards Evie. She was always a heavy sleeper. He remembered when they were children, and her father would lift her a bit clumsily to his shoulder, grumbling that she was too old for this while her head knocked his bone, but she wouldn't stir in the slightest. There was no difference now, as his hand rested precariously across her forehead. Her breathing was deep and steady, no visible change to suggest that she sensed him at all.

"I should have told her."

Lin sighed. "This sort of hindsight is poisonous, Noll."

He didn't need the confirmation. Regret accomplished nothing. Lin had been his most fervent teacher in that regard. He could not take back his decisions, nor the consequences, no matter if the worst damage was done to himself, or if his family suffered more. To understand the past as he did was enough. To wish to change it was more devastatingly futile than facing a mirror with his fist. "I know."

He let his hand retreat to his side to pluck at the fabric of his pants, his tendons fuzzy and delayed with exhaustion. No rest tonight though, because tonight was nearly gone. The light from the window was dull gray with early morning, casting soft shadows across the room. Noll felt his legs drop from under him, his back hitting the chair with a resolute thud. He'd try to sleep now, no matter the consequence. Whether his team saw him unkempt and haggard was unimportant.

His eyes had barely slipped shut when the screaming began.

For a moment, she thought she was awake, without that second of suspended black to prelude her dreaming. It was strange, that she'd found herself in the hallway on the third floor, but then it wasn't that unusual to pop to consciousness in a weird place. Once Madoka found her hanging upside down from a tree house like a bat. In any case, she wasn't immediately aware, or even alarmed, when one of the doors opened and she received a gasp of surprise. Juri-san looked herself, if partially obscured by shadows, ruffled and drawn thin by stress as she balanced an overflowing laundry basket on her hip, face relaxing with recognition. Mai opened her mouth to greet the woman.

"You know what he did." They were not her words. Not even resembling the chipper good morning Juri-san she'd meant, unstable and cracking with that awkward shifting she'd never experienced because she was a girl. The realization slammed into her then, as Juri-san shuffled further into the light and she saw that it wasn't Juri-san's face twisting into a grimace of pain. This woman was younger by almost fifteen years at least, boyish and meek, more severe in the angles of her face. Regardless the resemblance was startling. Her mother, maybe, or her grandmother? Mai wished she could glance around to date the wallpaper, a picture, anything that could give her the slightest clue, but her head was stuck forward, and distantly she could feel the rage burn in the gangly, unpracticed body that did not belong to her.

"I'm very sorry, Hideyo-kun, but I don't know what you're talking about," the woman gave in reticently, adjusting her grip on the heavy basket. Mai felt a scoff bubble in her throat, a spike of blinding hatred making its way to her lips.

And she had no control. She really hated first person dreams. "You're lying. You know exactly what happened, don't you?"

"Hideyo—."

"DON'T LIE TO ME!" The scream tore from her lips without warning. She twitched to cover her mouth, as if she could contain the words before they reached the startled woman, but the hands wouldn't respond to her. His hands. Mai was along for the ride, helpless. It was better when she was a ghost in their world, an observer too far from the scene to really feel it claw at her the way it did now. He wanted to kill. Kill kill kill kill kill and Mai twitched for a new reason, twitched for a weapon, her hands maybe, so she could snuff out the coward watching her with pitiful eyes. Pathetic. Her fault. She let this happen. She was weak. She deserved it.

Not me. Hideyo's thoughts, not mine, Mai tried, willing the swirl of emotions rising closer and closer to whatever part of her invaded his memory to release her. Not me.

"You know what he did." His voice dropped to a menacing growl. "I know you do."

Mai dragged herself away from his mind, like peeling pages of a wet book apart, just as the edges of her vision started to undulate. The woman, Jin-san maybe, dropped her basket, and Mai saw that her hands were shaking violently, clutching her ribs. She's in pain. Something she saw, not him, afforded by their connection dissolving. She could have cried in relief.

Only to be dropped into another strange place, the darkness engulfing her entirely only to spit her out like so much half-chewed food. Her feet hit grass, barefoot and the tendrils were soft and damp beneath toes too long to be her almost stubby round ones. Her vision was swimming until she realized it was night time once more and she couldn't see. She was running blindly across the expanse of rock-strewn lawn, the pads of her feet studded with pebbles and crushed stalks of grass and dew. Disoriented, panic, but she knew where she was going. The garden. I saw him. The garden. The thoughts rang in her mind, in her voice. Blinding hatred, agony so overwhelming she was suffocated in his body.

Kill. He wanted to kill.

The outline of the garden congealed like a clot in the darkness, struck through with a single beam of light. It cast shadows of a distorted, stalky man across the grass. Kill.

Closer, and she couldn't understand how his footsteps were so silent, how the breath rattling in his lungs didn't make the man turn and see them. Him. She could only make out the flashlight in his thick, meaty fist. Clunky with a heavy battery pack, like the ones in old movies. They reached the fence, he reached the fence, his hand feeling along the slimy wood, catching on a nail, before wrapping around something coarse and bitter-smelling, like mildew and manure, winding through his fingers like a snake. Rope. The man didn't turn. He let his arm swing, and the light fell to circle around a dark patch of earth, darker than the surrounding soil. Turned recently. Mai had seen enough hastily dug graves in her visions to note the difference.

She could feel the boy's hands twist the seeping braid into a loop, then a rigid line. He wasn't too tall. It would be a simple thing to reach his neck. A satisfying thing, to feel him struggle. Mai squirmed against his thoughts. Don't do it, Hideyo. Don't do it. He took a step closer.

Wake up, Mai. Please wake up, she begged herself. She understood what he wanted her to know without him spelling it out, but she was stuck until he was done with her. Or until Ayako or Bou-san slapped her. Even so, she would damn well try. Wake up.

Another step.

Come on, wake up.

So close now. She could see his ribs expand under his jacket, breathing deeply. He had to know. Why was he just standing there?

Gene! Please, I don't want to see this.

A twig snapped underfoot. The man flinched.

No, no, Gene, please.

Okay.

The garden shattered. Just the silhouette of his face against the inky forest and then Mai was falling, falling, complete darkness around her and she was almost used to it, almost accustomed to the fear clawing up from her stomach and the wind roaring in her ears. She screamed anyway, until her lungs were writhing and she tried to gulp in the air that rushed past her but it wouldn't come. Desperation stole her reason and she clawed at her face. Nothing there. Nothing. She couldn't breathe. Gene, help me. Don't let me die. Something pinched her mouth shut, her nose, constricted around her stomach like a vice. Her head was spinning.

"That's a good girl."

Gene! PLEASE!

Her nose tingled, deep inside near her eyes and distantly she felt the warm ooze of blood down her lip.

"…Mai."

Naru!

She hit the ground.

By the time Naru burst into the room, Ayako was straddling her.

"Mai! Wake up! Mai!"

He cut through the crowd of people, his team and a few children who'd been woken by the shouting, possibly shoving them aside but his exhausted mind kept telling him get to her get to her get to her. Mai was flailing, choking again, smearing a steady trickle of blood from her nose across her face while Ayako attempted to keep her limbs still. The screaming ceased, only to be replaced by a gut-wrenching rasp of air trying to sneak through a too-constricted throat. Mai tried to claw something away from her mouth. There was blood on her fingers where she'd torn too harshly at her neck.

"Shibuya-san!" John called, in a voice like relief and he found the eyes of his team trained on him, waiting for him to move. His mind was whirring. He watched her hands, clutching first at her throat, then nothing, then dropping limply to her side. No, this response was physical form did not react to the afflictions of her astral form beyond occasional corporeal transference. Minor injuries at worst. Not this, not asphyxiation. Indicative of what?

Ayako glanced at Takigawa poised over the bed beside her. "Do it."

He raised his hand.

It won't work, and he couldn't distinguish his conclusion from that voice, that disconnect from himself that had to be Gene, has to be Gene.

Noll grabbed his wrist tightly before his own steps had even registered and shouldered him to the side.

"Her connection to the spirit wasn't severed entirely. She's caught between planes and only a spiritual jolt will wake her," was all the time he'd waste on explanation before he reached her.

"Naru," Lin warned, and part of him remembered his teacher and Evie flying up the stairs behind him, but he ignored him. Mai had stopped moving now almost entirely, her body convulsing in tight tremors that reverberated across the bunched sheets. She wasn't breathing. Connection severing?

"Mai," he whispered, more breath than air, and his hand dropped to her shoulder. Her skin was cool and clammy to the touch. Blood pressure dropping. He leaned in close to her ear. "You have to wake up, Mai."

No change. He didn't expect one. She was still projecting, still infinitely gone from reality, but he had to be certain. Energy pulsed along his arms, pressing at the edges of his skin and he grit his teeth against the burn. A deep breath, to focus the well of power pushing at his fingertips into a single spark. He pressed an index finger to her cheek.

Nothing.

Not enough. He bit the inside of his cheek. The air was crackling near his wrists, shocking his nerves while the energy radiated his veins from the inside. He nearly faltered at the surge, the pain twinging up and down his spine. It had been so long.

"Careful, Naru." Lin was closer now, behind him. A hand on his back to anchor him, to remind him to guide the power with his breath. He couldn't afford to make a mistake now, not like at the shrine. Too much could kill them both.

Just a little more. Another spark, stronger, right over her heart. Wake up.

Her eyes flashed open.

He didn't know how it happened, if he'd retreated or if Ayako had actively shoved him out of the way but he was suddenly on his feet, and Mai was sobbing. Her face burrowed in the doctor's neck indiscriminately, disregarding of the tears and mucous and uncoagulated blood as she sought her comfort. Relief slumped his shoulders and drained the vestiges of his energy from his limbs. She was safe. Behind him, Takigawa was murmuring his own comfort to a traumatized ten year-old, and Naru followed the rhythm of his words numbly, uncomprehending as he willed his powers back beneath his skin.

Lin stalked his charge for any sign that he'd gone too far. The room still sung with the lingering swell of spiritual energy, however trifling the amount, but Noll appeared no more worse for wear. His exhaustion had been evident before the incident had begun, and seemed only slightly more exasperated now that it concluded. He released the breath that had stuck in his lungs during his examination. He had to remember to trust Noll, though admittedly it was difficult when he insisted on being heroically reckless. Even so, he knew his limits, whether or not he always heeded them.

"It's alright now," Father Brown insisted, guiding the few children from the room who'd beat them to the commotion. Children who weren't much younger than Noll.

"I'm fine now," Mai croaked her reassurance to the concerned faces that passed, glancing up at this stranger who just moments before had nearly suffocated. And yet she smiled. Lin took that to mean she was at the very least enduring and slid an indulgent hand across his face. The sun was bright even through the curtains, well into morning now that they could breathe a collective sigh of relief. New audio to review and dreams to record, hours of footage to be rifled through and the day had already long begun without him.

He had almost taken a step when one of his shiki rammed hard against his spiritual sheath.

"Naru—."

BANG!

An aborted shout and John was flung from the room as if he weighed no more than the clothes he wore. His back hit the opposite wall with a sickening thud.

"John!" someone shouted, Takigawa, only to cut off as the door slammed shut. He wrangled the knob between his hands. "It won't open."

These doors have no locks.

One of his shiki pushed at him mindlessly, like a child trying to hide his face against his father's hip. All of them now, plucking at him, trying to hide, or trying to push him somewhere, away. The air in the room turned heavy and stale, pulsing as if it were a living thing congealing from whatever suffocating being forced its way his shiki were wild, despite his efforts to keep his heartbeat steady and his own power stable. He couldn't read them. They wrapped around him of their own accord, a wall of energy between himself and the presence and he was suddenly afforded clarity by the disconnect. He swept his hair from his face and shut his left eye.

He was here. Not manifested, just a cloud of anger emanating from the bed where Mai had curled in on herself, Naru looming over her like a shield. She was clutching her ears, eyes straining closed as if blocking out an unpleasant sound. Hara-san too, he noted in his peripheral, and Evie, huddled at opposite corners of the room.

"What do you hear," Naru demanded, his voice thick through the film of his shiki, guiding a hand away from her head. "Mai, focus. What do you hear."

She grit her teeth and barked, "S-screaming. H-he's s-screaming so loudly. It hurts!"

"What is he saying."

"Nothing! Nothing! Just a scream!"

Lin didn't wait for an order in the form of his name. Fingers to his lips, he whistled sharply, and the sound cut through the distant screams of the children cowering, confused, in their rooms. Velan, go. Their shield dissolved, the others fluttering more desperately in a ring around him as a single bolt of undeterminable mirage shot towards the bed, right through the center of the half-formed spirit. Shooting pain shuddered down his spine but he ignored it. Scatter him. Resistance, the spirit wrapped around Velan, useless but to capture and hold him. Fan. Another ball of not-light fled across the room and sliced a line through the near-indiscernible mist. Mai pressed her ears tighter.

It stopped. So abruptly that the women didn't drop their hands for another ten seconds at least and the bewildered shouts across the mansion still reverberated in the room. He opened his eye.

Strange, he decided, that the walls shook with a hundred voices clambering over each other in confusion, question after question falling on equally ignorant ears, and yet without the electric violence of the presence, he would almost call the panting confusion silence. It, the boy, was gone, returned to its hiding place no doubt. Hara-san scanned the room from her corner and nodded to him, as if to confirm his unspoken thought. And with their exchange the rest of the team collectively sighed away their lingering adrenaline. One by one, they turned towards Noll. His eyes were glassy and unfocused as he regarded them.

"Matsuzaki-san, see to John." The doctor nodded dazedly and staggered to her feet. She opened the door without issue. Noll turned his fleeting attention to him. "Lin, take Mai to base. Record the details of her dream."

He took one look at Mai trembling almost pathetically on the mattress and offered her his hand. "Come, Taniyama-san."

"The rest of you, check on Juri-san and the children. I'm going to rest." He certainly seemed exhausted. They dispersed to their duties easily, notably lacking their typical pointless, bantering protest, and Noll slumped over fractionally, sinking into the mattress with all the weariness of a very old man. Lin wondered if he wouldn't sleep there, in Mai's bed. He seemed in no hurry to leave. Noll stared at his own lap, unseeing and drifting. Yes, he probably would.

Lin glanced at his newest charge. Her hand was resting in his, gripping it really, in preparation to haul herself to her feet. "I think I can stand," Mai assured, only to fall hard against him the moment she was upright.

"I've carried you before, Taniyama-san. It is hardly a trouble now." He watched her evenly, waiting for protest. Mai pursed her lips stubbornly and he dreaded the good thirty minutes it would take for her to lumber down the stairs in her condition. So much like Noll. He bowed his head. "Let me help you. Your night has been trying enough without making it more difficult for yourself."

And of all things, Mai chose to smile and laugh good-naturedly. "I think that's the longest I've heard you speak. Don't get all chatty on me, Lin-san."

He lifted her carefully so as not to further her dizziness and resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

So much like Gene, too.

The earth was dry and crumbly. Anything that had been growing there, cabbage if the crudely sketched picture was to be believed, had long since gone dormant for the winter, and the pale grey-brown dirt was evenly disturbed by dead roots. She couldn't find any landmark, any vague similarity to tell her that this was the spot. It had been too dark and she'd been too frightened. No rope, no footprints. All the evidence had washed away decades ago. No, she only had that voice. Here. The little twinge in her stomach. Right here. He stood right here.

Mai stood in the garden alone, though not completely alone. Lin-san was at his station, and there was a camera nearby set up at her insistence. His presence was comforting, however detached.

Right here. If only she had a shovel. It had been cool last night, but the ground wasn't frozen yet. No big trouble to dig up whatever secret the man had been trying to hide. But even that thought had an instinct like dread panging against the walls of her abdomen. There is nothing good down there.

Mai wished her powers were more straightforward. And that she could think like Naru more readily. So many pieces fell in her lap last night, but they were too similar in shape, the indistinguishable blue bits of an ocean puzzle. They were there and yet somehow she couldn't quite get them to fit. She'd try anyway. It's only a matter of making connections.

Hideyo tried to kill. She had no idea if he succeeded. Maybe. Maybe not. Only that shortly after her vision he hung himself in his room and the second ghost was more than likely female, not the man.

A second ghost. Are they connected? She was a girl, probably young. They knew that another girl had gone missing, runaway. Hideyo's sister. She was a strong possibility, but if the anger in the house was an indication, any number of tragedies could have occurred. Juri-san insisted that her grandmother didn't keep very neat records. In any case, the dream only revealed that this spirit had been assaulted, not that she had been killed. There was no evidence to even suggest that she'd died any time immediately after the events of that vision. Even so…

The woman. She'd been holding her ribs as Mai faded from the first vision. Such a small detail, but she'd apparently held onto while recounting her dream to Lin-san. No confirmation yet on her identity, but Mai was almost certain it was the grandmother. The man. Her husband? Or an employee? A gardener maybe?

So many pieces. How long had it been since they'd arrived? Four days? Five? Too long, either way. Even the case at Yasu's school hadn't taken this long. Naru should have had everything figured out by now. Maybe he does, and he's drawing everything out to be dramatic. But then Mai knew that was her frustration thinking. He was dramatic, but not nearly enough to warrant putting people at risk. The only conclusion that made any sense to her was that he didn't know any more than she did. Somehow the idea that he was on even ground with the rest of them for once wasn't as satisfying as she'd thought it would be.

It was…disheartening.

What's worse, she couldn't help but feel like his confusion was her fault.

"'That's a good girl.'"

Noll barely resisted shuddering in disgust as he reread the final paragraph for the third time. He had to keep his head right now. Something's not right here.

"I felt something smothering me, but there was nothing there. Right before I woke up, I heard….someone said…. 'That's a good girl.' Then I heard my name. [L: Was it the same voice?] No, someone else. Naru, I think."

Lin had typed Mai's recounting word for word, even her moments of hesitation. There was a notable break between her describing the feeling of choking and that particular line. Her subconscious might have honed in on the words as being out of place, even if she didn't in her retelling. The pedophile from his vision had said those words, not the boy. And since the man from his vision was in his late twenties at the youngest, and Miyata Hideyo was 14 when he died, it was unlikely that they were the same entity. How did he hear them? There was more to the vision, cut off because Mai had rejected the connection. A wise decision, as she had synced too closely with the spirit and the consequences had left their mark in the physical realm. He considered Gene being involved in that maneuver. Likely, since he'd encouraged Naru to wake Mai prematurely.

In any case, she'd been interrupted, evident by the spirit immediately becoming more volatile directly after her regaining consciousness.

"Lin, what was the temperature like in the room during and after Mai's episode?"

His fingers tapped across the keyboard. "…12.2 degrees during and after, dropping from 16.1 about two minutes before visible signs of distress."

"Did you observe anything unusual?"

"Only that it took two of my shiki to scatter him. He seems to be gaining strength, potentially devolving in his psyche."

He jotted the numbers down in his black notebook, and turned towards the commandeered laptop. Lin had collected the daily temperature readings into a spreadsheet, in addition to marking structural failures that could potentially explain any anomalies. While part of him was grateful for the attention to detail, most of him was finding it disconcertingly difficult to keep his eyes from wandering. It was almost ridiculous that he even tried at this point, but his mind was veering off course, away from Lin's input and temperature differentials. He was too distracted, the only logical part of him left insisted. Just a casual mention of her name, and he was stuck in a sudden impulse to find her. You should find her. The only way to completely eliminate a distraction of this nature is to give in to temptation. It was Gene logic, accurate only because it couldn't be proven or disproven, excessively Freudian but he found himself agreeing with it. If he was…concerned for Mai's state of mind so soon after a violent merging of her consciousness and the ghost's, then he should relieve that concern with an investigation of her state of mind. Once he was satisfied that she was functioning properly as a member of his team, then he could return to work.

Return to sanity.

"Where is Mai?" he asked, vaguely aware that he'd cut off his assistant mid-sentence but too proud to acknowledge it.

Lin turned back to the monitors (from giving him a withered look that went unnoticed) and restrained himself from spelling it out for him. His ocean of patience was running increasingly dry. "In the garden. She's been out there for some time now."

Naru nodded in way of thanks and strolled from the base without urgency. A few children shuffled past him, their eyes turned down and he wondered distantly if it was the morning or just him that had such an effect on them. He didn't stop to find out.

Outside, the air had finally met the season. Most of the children had retreated to the main hall for their studies, no warmth calling them out to play, and the lawn was eerily quiet. His eyes scanned over bald spots in the dying grass, little pockets where chunks of turf had been torn away by a few hundred feet shuffling about clumsily. It brought to mind memories he'd rather forget. Stay away from those two. They're trouble. Sitting in the silence of a room that had seen better days, the walls messily sealed with hasty plaster. He pressed the images away with his fingertips.

He needed to get control of himself. Never had his emotions ruled him as completely as they had these past few days. What's worse, he wasn't sure he could pinpoint exactly what caused this damnable irrationality. Too many variables were thrown into his comfortable list of constants. His team, the way they spoke to each other, the way they didn't cower at him like the gophers in London did but still respected him; now they had Evie, whom he'd ignored for almost two years because physical distance allowed for emotional distance and enough space to focus on finding his brother. She filled in the cracks in their dynamic, not quite fitting into the whole but trying to. Mai, always quick to check his 'bad' behavior and amusingly ignorant, clumsy, useless when she tried not to be and useful when she didn't. Training, not so useless anymore. She just didn't care. Maybe because whatever link made her react to him so strongly had been transferred to the person in her dreams. Then himself. Where he'd been proud and detached and coldly logical he was just…confused. On equal ground with people he'd seen as endearingly below him. Because of too many variables thrown in with the constants. Idiot scientist. He was an idiot, but not much of a scientist anymore.

The wind tossed a too-long lock of hair in his face and he sighed. Thoughts of this nature would get him nowhere and he knew it. Identifying perplexity did little to alieve it. So he returned his focus to the task at hand; finding Mai and assessing her state of being with the intent of returning to work unencumbered. Naru followed an accidental path worn into the grass by years of playing follow-the-leader to the garden.

Her back was to him, when the scattered trees freed his line of sight. The tension weaving up her muscles was plain beneath her thin t-shirt, but her breathing was measured, the deliberate sort employed in meditation. Madoka, or someone else? She didn't turn as he approached, nor did she make any indication that she'd heard him at all. He took the lull before her noticing him to study her. Shaking in the cold, clutching her elbows as she angled her head towards the trained earth, and he couldn't remember ever seeing her awake and this silent. Mai had a tendency to make frivolous noise, a habit he thought might have stemmed from being used to a household of noise then adjusting to silence. She wasn't humming, or tapping her leg, or chewing gum or some other sweet. Completely focused. It baffled him.

He shrugged the warm suit jacket from his shoulder as he closed the last of the distance between them, setting it over her shoulders carefully. She jumped under the weight of the silk-lined wool.

"Oh. Hello Naru," she said sweetly, but lacking her normal enthusiasm. Still in thought.

"Are you alright?" He'd asked it earlier, as she clung to him with the vestiges of her terror, and he asked again now. Whatever kept her locked in focus swam so plainly across her face, frustration and a little bit of guilt, and he felt his shoulders slump minutely in relief. He couldn't pinpoint why exactly, just that there was something comforting about being able to read her like an open book again. She'd been too…cagey for his liking.

She nodded, letting her smile slip as her eyes dropped to her fidgeting hands. "I'm just confused. I feel like someone dumped all the answers in front of me and I'm just too stupid to figure them out." Her lips turned up in a self-deprecating smile. It was very her, despite him having never seen it from her before. "I wish I could think like you, Naru."

He was unspeakably thrilled that she couldn't. You're not stupid, he thought, but wouldn't say aloud, watching her evenly, passively, while inside he felt a churning pressure to do something. Such a base impulse to which he couldn't put a name. His hand went to her shoulder of its own accord, the shock of familiar fabric against his palm and he suddenly remembered that he'd given her his jacket. He hadn't even noticed.

"You've done enough for now, Mai," he dismissed, waving away her effort to draw out her own confusion. He'd learned the difficult way many times over that rest was important, especially after a trauma like her dream. In fact he couldn't really say that he'd learned his lesson entirely. "How are you?"

Her shoulders slumped in defeat, but the look she gave him was grateful. "I'm not sure, to be honest. I mean, I'm used to this feeling, but I don't know if that means I'm okay, or that I'm numb."

"I'd imagine it's a bit of both." He didn't just imagine. He knew exactly how she felt, that confusion of sensations, what belonged to you and what scars were theirs. How the memories lingered, no matter how much you distanced yourself from them. Filed them away. He felt a twitch of surprise down his spine at the notion, silly because this wasn't the first time he'd been able to empathize with Mai. Empathize, to understand another's condition, emotional state, or situation as one's own. Mai wasn't very different from him, in many ways.

What a baffling thought.

She looked at him a little sadly, not a pitying look but one of true understanding. She did understand, and he was so unutterably confused by how much that moved him. "You do know, don't you?" It wasn't a question. "I think I'm still getting used to the idea of you being Oliver Davis, world famous psychic."

"You make me sound like a cheesy television program," he scoffed, and her teasing laughter filled the chilled afternoon air. "And if I were so 'world famous', surely even you would have recognized me."

She rolled her eyes and elbowed him playfully, though still punishing him for alluding to her perceived lack of intelligence, and for a moment he was comfortable. Mai was herself again, or the Mai he'd left almost two months ago. He felt more on stable ground than he had since he'd returned.

"It's a little easier knowing you really are a narcissistic slave-driver on the inside," she conceded happily, ignoring his reprimanding glare, "At least if I didn't know your name I still got to know you. Narcissistic Naru-chan."

"You haven't called me that in a long time," he observed impulsively, his hand slipping from her shoulder to rest at his side.

Her brow furrowed in confusion. "I don't think I've called you anything but Naru since I gave you that nickname."

"I meant Naru-chan, baka," he tried again, but her perplexed expression didn't ease. In her defense he wasn't quite sure what he meant either.

She shrugged. "I guess you're right. But I think you're only Naru-chan when you're being cute."

"When am I ever cute?"

"Hm, I was almost expecting you to say 'I'm always cute.' I'm not sure I could handle that, though," she mused aloud without bothering to explain and he would've sighed in exasperation if this weren't so completely normal for her. Her smile was wide, a little mischievous. There was a spark in her eyes that meant she was teasing him.

"Devastatingly handsome and cute are not the same thing, Mai," he corrected primly, smirking when she tried to give him her withered stare and ended up laughing. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realized that he was teasing her back, not his typical antagonizing, but actual teasing. Flirting, Gene snickered, or at least that part of his consciousness that sounded like Gene snickered. He wished he could disagree. To any outside observer, that was exactly what it would look like.

"Oh, I missed you, Naru-chan," she giggled. Obviously referring to his bout of self-admiration, yet he speculated as to whether the hint of other was really present or just his skewed perception.

He felt the corners of his lips twitch to smile and clamped them down. "Am I being cute now?"

"I think yes," she replied after some thought, which surprised him. He hadn't considered her actually deliberating an answer. "You did give me your jacket. Very sweet of you." No teasing now, but then Mai had never poked at his more human side.

He wasn't sure he could handle this kind of conversation for much longer. His mind shuffled through segues, pointless topics that wouldn't draw him so close to her, but each time he could come to one issue only, one he was loathe to address. You don't need to hear it now, but I'll tell you soon. Mai let the silence happen without protest, falling back into her thoughts as easily as he fell into his. The idea was nearly frightening, because he was excited at the prospect of her being like him even as he was saddened.

He spoke before he could change his mind. "Mai, what did you mean by 'it's not exactly new to me either'?"

Her back tensed again. Any comfort she'd been harboring since he'd found her was dismissed rapidly. She had expected the question, he could tell by the way her breath left her in a meditative sigh, but that made it no less jarring. His mind was reeling at the implication.

"It's alright, you know," she said first, as if to herself, her fingers curling in his too-long sleeves. "I mean, it was a while ago."

"Mai," he offered, just her name and he hoped it was enough. For all that this same feeling of pointless shame had rushed through his body a thousand times, he couldn't begin to address it in her. God, he wished he didn't need to.

She didn't look at him. "I guess it happened right after I moved out of my teacher's home. She was very generous, but I still felt like I'd overstayed my welcome, no matter how often she insisted that I didn't. I left as soon as my old house was sold."

There was a trace of pride in her voice, though not an arrogant kind. Mai could never be arrogant. She didn't find much in herself to be proud of, he realized, but she was proud of her independence. She had the most refined sense of responsibility and priority that he'd ever encountered.

"Were you working then?" he asked to keep her going. He knew well that teetering back and forth between resolve, whether it was even worth it to continue. He watched her profile sink into a passive, slumping blankness in response.

"Yeah. A department store six blocks from my apartment. The manager hired me under the table before I'd turned fifteen. I think he lost one of his parents too." She was shivering again, but not for cold this time. "Anyway, I finished unpacking after about three days. I didn't have a lot of stuff. I was walking towards the stairwell so I could meet up with one of my friends to celebrate, when someone shoved me from behind. I still don't know why he was there. The only people who lived on my floor were an old woman, a few college students, and a widow with her two kids. He was just there."

The detachment she'd visibly worked for shattered for a moment and she took another deep breath. Regaining control, over her body, over her emotions. A year ago he'd have never expected this from her. Not her self-control, not her willingness to share such delicate things, not the grave way she clutched at herself for comfort. "He pushed me into the wall and told me to be quiet. If I screamed, he'd kill me. I was….surprised, I think, more than I was scared. Like I didn't think this kind of thing really happened. It took me a while to notice his hands pushing my skirt up or the knife he pressed to my neck. And I just kind of…stood there, like I was waiting for, well, I d-don't really know. Just waiting."

She glanced at him. He wondered if the hollow anger roiling in his stomach showed on his face. "Well, he didn't get very far before the guy who lives next to me now roughed him up. Nakano-san was there to check out the apartment next to mine. He moved in a week later." She laughed to herself. "He calls me little sister and tries to flirt with me, but I think he just wants to protect me. He won't listen when I tell him that I'm fine."

A pointed look towards him that he ignored. He wanted to ask if she'd called the police. If she'd talked to anyone about this. Somehow he knew the answers would be no. Part of her independence meant she carried her cross unaccompanied, no matter how heavy it was. Such a brave sort of stupidity, so much like mine, and he admired her greatly for it.

He found that he wanted to tell her that, or anything really, that he respected her, that he…just wanted to say something. Her eyes were so far away and yet she was more here, more with him than he could ever manage to be with anyone. He wasn't…good at this sort of thing. Feelings, people, he was rootless and base and so unlike them. He much preferred ghosts. They were empty. Simple even as a mystery, like him.

"Mai," was all he could offer, just her name and what he hoped was a gentle look and good God she sparked to life. Grinned, hugged his jacket around herself further and he couldn't help but think that she was beautiful, even if the very thought shook some foundation in him until it cracked.

He hated this, reeling like a lost child in the dark. This uneven ground again and he couldn't stand. He didn't know what to do. His brother would know. Gene always knew exactly what needed to be said to comfort. Even if it was just an embrace, an exchange of sensations where words failed him. How many hugs? How many cheek kisses and pats on the back and hands seeking his to cement him in reality? His free memories, the ones that were his and tumbled together in no logical place, filtered across his vision.

Maybe he did know. Maybe it wasn't a matter for words.

"Thank you, for listening," she returned, but her voice was breathy and light and it registered abruptly that he'd taken a step closer to her. His mind had retreated, at some point in the time it took to cross the miniscule span between them, and he was moving, reaching for her numbly and she just watched him with her eyes glittering in interest. No dissection of his actions, nothing to even suggest her mind whirred the way his had, questioning, rationalizing what couldn't be rationalized. She knew too. When her body ricocheted almost imperceptibly between his arms, and her hands burrowed in his shirt of their own accord, he gave in to it.

He pulled her close. This was alright. This was safe. She hummed against his chest, wedging her head beneath his chin insistently. She had no qualms seeking her comfort, or taking what he offered. He could almost laugh. Mai was shameless, always, in the best ways.

"Mm're mwam," she declared plaintively, into his shirt so he couldn't understand her but he felt the vibration of her speech along his collarbone. It was…utterly alien, these sensations that were at once so familiar to him and unlike anything he knew.

"What?" he murmured, and her hair tickled his jaw when he spoke.

She giggled. He could feel it. "You're warm. I think you run a little hotter than most people, ne, Naru-chan?"

"PK," he replied stupidly, thinking I'm being cute? even though he shouldn't. His arms slid from her shoulders to settle more comfortably in the dip of her waist, inadvertently pressing her closer and it hit him vaguely that this wasn't right. Something was different, and he didn't know what it was. He wanted to look at her face, to see if she understood. If she could give a name to his rising heartrate.

And Mai, because she was herself and that was the problem, pulled back enough to look up at him. He was almost certain now. She was aware. She was leading him. His hands curled into the fabric of his own jacket and pulled her closer still.

What was he doing?

She clutched at his shoulders, leaned her weight more fully against him, and all the while she kept smilingat him. Why wasn't she stopping him?

"It's okay, Naru," she whispered, over and over like a breathy, insubstantial cheer and he had no idea what she meant. Had no grasp on the situation at all. He was very near terrified. "It's okay."

Her eyes fluttered shut, and he realized he was leaning slightly, her face blurring with their proximity and somewhere in the back of his so very distant mind someone else's joy radiated.

"It's okay."

Was it, was it really?

"Mai! Naru! Are you out here?"

He jolted, so violently it was a wonder he didn't fall over entirely. A wonder he managed to stay upright even now as the gravity of the situation hit him, finally hit him. Mai looked at him sadly, embarrassed, a blush spreading along her cheeks that he couldn't blame for the cold. He'd almost…

"Lunch is ready! Hurry up or you'll have to fight the kids for scraps!" Ayako's shout rent the stillness again and he winced. Idiot, idiot.

Mai slid his jacket from its perch on her shoulders. "Naru, I—."

"We should go." He couldn't bear to hear her speak, not now. Turning wordlessly on his heels, he headed to the house, where Ayako stood in the doorway, waiting. He wouldn't look back, where Mai had yet to move.

It's okay, and couldn't tell if it was her or Gene invading his head again. It's okay.

But it really, really wasn't.

Mai was sure her face was a little, well, flaming since she'd finally scooped her brain off the ground and followed Naru's quickly retreating form back into the house. Ayako had the good grace not to comment, probably because spats between the two were so common it was a stranger day when one or both of them weren't in a baffled state, but this was so very different. Not a spat at all. Just a moment they could share, when he was being Naru, adorable, lost Naru who tried to comfort her even though it was unspeakably hard for him. When he reached for her, it was all she could do not to faint, or squeal, or gawk at him like an idiot. But damn she was surprised, and though it meant summoning every bit of self-control she possessed, she had wanted to accept his comfort without him second guessing himself. Because even if she didn't really understand him, she sort of…did. Like the voice and the jolts in her stomach. He gave what he could and she knew it. Just knew it.

And then he'd almost…she didn't really know. It almost seemed like maybe, maybe if Ayako hadn't called their names, maybe he would have kissed her. Honestly it was hard to explain any other way, though that part of her that steadfastly refused to get her hopes up vehemently disagreed. But his face had been so close, he had been so close to her, and she could feel his breath on her face. And he looked so confused, like he wanted her to stop him and tell him what was happening. All she could do was say that it was alright, whatever he offered, it was alright.

God he almost kissed her. A grin split her cheeks.

"I didn't know Mai-chan's face could stretch that much," Evie commented, cutting off someone mid-sentence but Mai wasn't exactly present enough to figure out who.

"So that's how it is, huh? I didn't think danger excited you so much, Jou-chan," Bou-san added dryly, prodding her jaw with a callused fingertip. Annoying though it may be, it was enough to jar her from her thoughts. Not without a satisfying slap to the back of his ridiculously bleached, pony-tailed head. He was still the Unfortunate One, of course.

"Keep your hands to yourself, you old perv," she grumbled, well aware that she was clambering for a little dignity. She had been resolutely staring of into space, probably blushing profusely and grinning stupidly, while everyone else was discussing their next move, and then staring bemusedly at her. Except for Lin, who was being strangely more hostile in his silence than she was used to. Well he'd always been moody.

"…to continue," John edged carefully, smiling sort of knowingly while he recaptured the attention of the group, "It's clear from this morning's events that some action must be taken immediately. Should we consider an exorcism?"

Mai found herself glancing up for Naru's input automatically, even though he was off sulking or doing whatever it was he did when no one was watching. The rest of the team acted accordingly, and shared a few wry smiles at the collective realization that Naru still had them under his thumb. It was a little scary, actually.

"I'm sure my stance has been clear in the past," Masako interjected with all her normal, irritating grace, sitting primly with her hands folded in her lap. "Though Hideyo-kun is violent, I don't believe he's beyond purification. I'm not familiar enough with him or the other spirit to attempt it at the moment, but given a few days and more…research, it certainly seems possible."

"And what do you think we should do in the meantime? He's already escalated dangerously, and we have the residents to consider," Ayako contested. Mai rubbed at the scratches on her neck from where her own hands had torn at her skin, and couldn't help but agree.

"Either way, we need to get the kids out of here. It's way too dangerous," said Bou-san, pulled forward from his usual slouch by the gravity of the situation. "Hey Lin-san, did Juri-san mention any evacuation plans, in case of extensive damage or something?" Or crazy violent ghosts, she added unhelpfully in her mind.

Lin-san looked away from his screen slowly, his fingers tapping a few stray keys while he turned. His response time was almost exaggeratedly ridiculous. Like it was such a great burden to answer them. And was it just her, or did he shoot a nasty glare in Ayako's direction?

She wouldn't get to know. In the few more seconds it took him to very deliberately fill his lungs to speak, Naru decided to walk into the abruptly hushed room. Which, she had to admit, wasn't that uncommon. He had a way of pulling focus, and it wasn't just because of his distracting face. But that wasn't the unusual part of this picture.

Nose in his book, cup of tea in hand. Completely normal, even down to the steady stride of his long legs. Except attached to one of his legs was a kid. A toddler, who probably shouldn't have been downstairs this late into the evening. But he looked perfectly content where he was, clinging to Naru's pant-leg and looking up at the outwardly unaffected boss with something like adoration. Mai swallowed a laugh before it could draw his attention. The last thing she needed was him picking a fight with her to save face.

He lowered the notebook to his side and gestured vaguely to his leg. "Lin, if you would."

There was a long, tense moment in which Lin-san looked to the gurgling, cheerful toddler, then to Naru, and back to the toddler. Silent and stoic, as per usual, until he turned to the monitor, dismissing Naru boldly with a vagrant wave of his hand. Mai had a feeling she knew where this was going. Ayako had shown her the tapes…

"Why don't you keep him company for a while, Otousan," he suggested in his normal monotone, but she swore she could hear victory ringing in the syllables.

It only took a second for the words to settle in everyone's collectively baffled minds before the base erupted with laughter. And to make it not even a little bit better, Naru had to pull a Naru-pout that was really more of a glare and sort of stomped over to his unspoken throne, with the little boy still attached to his leg. Mai had to lean on Bou-san for support, she was laughing so hard.

"I…just knew he'd get him for t-that eventually!" Bou-san howled, only to earn a scathing look from his boss that did absolutely nothing to shut him up. He only laughed louder, and Mai decided then it was time to take pity on Naru. He had kind of been through the ringer today, so she would be nice.

Besides, he gave her his jacket and hugged her. She could afford a little reciprocation.

"Here, Naru-chan," she offered, ignoring the little flip in her mind that screamed you totally just called him cute again, inadvertently but still, and bent down to face the little boy (who upon closer inspection had to be the kid from dinner the other night). He was blinking up at her owlishly, obviously sleepy but at that age where he had firmly decided to keep himself up just because he could. With some gentle coercing, she managed to untangle his pudgy arms from around Naru's calf and settle him astride her hip, bouncing him happily to distract him from the loss of his perch.

Naru nodded, and she took it to mean thank you while she set to tickling the little boy into drowsiness. Her own distraction, because she was suddenly very close to Naru again, and after their…thing, she wasn't quite sure what to do with the blush heating her cheeks. Or the warm look he probably didn't know he was giving her. Or that when she asked how he'd gotten himself into this mess, he didn't respond. He only stared at her.

"Oniisan's silly, huh?" she asked the giggling toddler, bouncing again in time to his laughter. "I used to think he was scary, can you believe it?"

"Scary-chan! Scary-chan!" the little boy, Ita-something if she remembered Naru's short introduction correctly, chanted happily. And at that, Naru reached his threshold. He returned to the safety of his notebook, plopping down on his chair after glaring at the back of Lin's head one more time. Mai giggled to herself. He'd certainly held out longer than she would've expected.

"I'll take him, Taniyama-san," John insisted, holding out his arms for the exuberant kid. "You're more needed in this discussion than I am."

She wasn't sure about that, but she wouldn't argue if he was offering to take him off her hands. The boy—Itaru was his name!—gladly leapt to his new perch like an overexcited monkey, and John chuckled sweetly at the impact, before heading towards the stairwell.

"To answer your question, Takigawa-san," Lin began, commanding the room again and Mai felt the vestiges of her humor slither away to seriousness. "Hamasaki-san has an agreement with the local school to use their gymnasium for shelter in the event of an emergency. It would be a relatively simple matter to move the children should the need arise."

His pony-tail bobbed contemplatively. "We definitely need to get them out before the exorcism. Sooner if the ghost starts acting up again. And for the exorcism, we're gonna leave that to Hara-san for now, right?"

"So we all agree with the 'wait and see' approach?" Ayako summarized pointedly, and Mai was once again struck with how little it felt like they knew. Even after all the mayhem today…something was missing. All while the stupid proverbial clock was ticking. But then, what could they do?

Mai had nothing to say, but…

Wait and see just didn't feel like…enough.

Evie slipped from the room, unnoticed between the laughter and nostalgia. A miracle really, given how she had staggered with all the grace of a drunkard. Not even Koujo looked up. Though it was better that he didn't, should he decide to be dramatic for the fiftieth time.

Even if part of her was thinking a little dramatic was looking to be necessary.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," she hissed to herself, as if the rush of consonants could blow out the flame radiating below her sternum. Her hand clutched the spot of its own accord, but the ache didn't recede. Not even a little bit. And God damn it hurt, almost more than last time, pulsing and unbearably hot and she was struggling just to stay on her feet. It couldn't be natural, it couldn't be real, not her nerves curling in on themselves like grass in a fire pit, not real coals smoldering at the bottom of her lungs like she'd forced them down her own windpipe. Just the house. There was so much pain here, and it was so young, and this was her penance for invading it. For feeling it like she could call it hers. Fire in her lungs and her eyes clouding with the smoke that wasn't there.

"Naoki-san!" a voice greeted cheerfully, and though she couldn't peel her frying eyelids apart enough to see who it belonged to, she felt the concern creep along her skin and it felt like Father Brown's. He was at her side suddenly, hands bracing her weight because her knees had chosen that moment to crumble beneath her. His skin was cool where she fell into him and yet the heat wouldn't die.

"Naoki-san, what's wrong?" he inquired, sternly for all that she didn't remember, in agony or not, ever hearing his voice other than gentle and understanding and humble. He adjusted her carefully so her back found the wall for additional support. He didn't pull his hands from her arms.

"I-it's nothing," she wanted to say, but it burned in the fire in her lungs and puffed insubstantially from her lips. She swallowed thickly. "It's j-just the house. Too m-many emotions hanging around."

She wasn't sure he believed her. If she could see his face maybe she'd know. It didn't really matter anyway. Right now house was the only explanation that made sense.

Unless she was dying, but she didn't want to think that was a possibility. And it made even less sense than house.

"I'll get Lin-san. Maybe he can—."

Panic seized her through the pain and she gripped his arm tightly. "N-no, no. It's alright. I'm alright. Just the house. He and Naru will just be dramatic. R-really. I'm fine. I just need to lay down or s-something."

Maybe she was too desperate. He took pity on her anyway and released her, only after she managed to haul herself upright and stay that way. Wobbly as a building roasting on the inside, swaying back and forth on its crumbling foundation.

"Alright Naoki-san. But if this…persists, please take care of yourself," he instructed gently, more like the tone she'd been used to in their brief, superficial conversations.

"I will," she promised, and managed a smile even though it took most of her effort not to heave her dinner all over the Father's shoes. She waited a long time, swallowing the little whimpers pressing on her raw throat, for him to leave her. He watched her for a minute that stretched on like Hell. Then finally, finally he retreated into the hall. Whistling a jovial little tune.

Evie found herself hugging a toilet, and her mouth tasted of blood.

Her vision was normal now, at least, as she glanced wearily to the basin before flushing away the acrid contents of her stomach. And the pain had left, finally. Shaky with lingering adrenaline, she rose to her feet. Her legs were quaking with all the consistency of pudding, and her head was throbbing, but somehow, after suffering she found it a little easier to look on the bright side. She wasn't dead, or in pain and that was enough right now.

She ignored the clump of hair sliding from her fingers so she could robotically rinse the nauseating mix of blood and vomit from her mouth. Didn't search for the next little bald spot at the base of her neck, or pull up her shirt to see if the fire had left a mark on her skin. She splashed cool water on her face and relished in the chill.

Just the house, she thought, dazed and exhausted as she rushed down the hallway to her bed. Just a lot of old pain from a lot of too young people. Just the house. It will pass soon.

When the case is done.

It was their first case, and it was going very, very badly.

"Gene, watch out!"

But he couldn't hear over the screaming and the wind that had kicked up in an unrelenting vortex, over the sounds of books and papers and furniture slamming into each other indiscriminately. The bookcase tipped precariously, and Gene couldn't hear him. Noll looked to their supervisor helplessly. Madoka was unconscious already, a little trickle of blood leaking from her hairline where a book had savagely knocked her to the floor.

Gene! he all but screamed across the Line, and he looked up, but it had occurred to him too late. The bookcase was heading towards him. Gene only glanced behind in time to see it looming over him dangerously. Then Lin was suddenly, miraculously there and when it fell, he bore the brunt of its impact with an audible thud.

The wind whipped at his hair, a book catching his cheek and slicing a line across the pale skin. Are you alright?

We're fine, just pinned I think. Relief flooded him swiftly and he ducked to avoid a small lamp sailing on its shade. Get to Evie.

Right. Across the room, Evie cowered behind an overturned chair, arms braced behind her head and even from the distance he could make out the litany of scratches and bruises the flying debris had etched into her skin. Just above her head, a scattering of pens stuck to the wall like makeshift darts. He had no doubt of their true aim. She was right there, right at the center of the spirit's rage. It was howling, a blur of energy and hatred at the eye of its own storm, manifested to even him in its volatility. Their options were slim, with Lin indisposed and Madoka unconscious.

"Evie, you have to do it!" he shouted, hoping his voice cut through the wind as he half-walked, half-crawled to her hiding place. Papers shrieked by his ears and curled around his profile before slipping back into the vortex. He kept low to the floor in preparation to duck. "Evie!"

"I know!" she screeched in return, rolling nimbly from her barricade to a better vantage point. The spirit needed to see her for this to work. Eye contact was key, Dr. Naoki would affirm after each session. Like in wolves declaring dominance. Evie clambered to her feet just as he reached her side.

Books thudded against his back, and he braced himself against the heavier ones, wishing not for the first time that his PK would work on moving targets and resigning himself to be a human shield. She needed concentration. He knew better than anyone. A flying object to the back of the head was not conducive to success.

He glanced at her face. Evie was smiling now. Always so…unnerving. Because it was gentle, reassuring, and he could feel the power radiating from it, this unconscious expression of her will. Her eyes were darker, unnaturally dark, empty voids to take in and reflect back. The wind hiccupped. Her smile brightened and her eyes darkened.

Just a bit more, he thought, and he couldn't decide if he wanted the wind to end more or her smile. The spirit was enraptured, the glowing pits of its eyes trained unfailingly to her face. Just a bit more.

The wind died, so suddenly the books and pens and papers clattered to the floor like a barrage of cannon fire. He almost missed the warm light and the gentle words filtering between her smile when he glanced back to his brother and Lin. Nothing had killed them in the interim, and Madoka had avoided more damage as well.

The spirit was gone, with ample data to support its presence in the first place. Despite the room's disarray, he would call this a success.

It wasn't until later, after they'd hefted the bookcase off Lin and Gene and called an ambulance for Madoka, that he realized Evie had yet to speak. She stared at her hands, silence unnerving as that smile and it struck him, distantly between his relief and success-born pride.

He knew this feeling. This shutting down.

When she shuffled past, head still ducked in self-imposed shame, to sit beside Lin, he reached for her arm. She stopped hesitantly, but looked at him.

"Thank you."

She nodded once, offered a smile that wasn't at all like the one before, and hid her face in Lin's shoulder.

Power was a burden, he decided. Good or bad was circumstantial.

So yeah, I'm pretty sure this was outlined on my computer as

Angst

Angst

Angst

Fluff

Little Angst

Brief Logistics

Comic Relief

Bookended Angst

Yeah...

Okay, brief note! If you're anxiously waiting for my slightly confusing update for Prestidigitation (why is it listed as complete? Because I'm lazy), then be prepared. It's crazy. I should have it done by next week, but since I'm notoriously bad at updating, don't hold me to that. Anyway

If you've stuck with me this far, thank you so much. It means the world to me to know that someone out there enjoys my work. You are wonderful and I can't wait to share the rest of this story with you! As per usual, if I royally fucked up, let me know and I'll try to fix it, and if you have any concerns/questions/comments/cookies, let me know via PM or review and I will definitely get back to you!