Title: Thunderstruck
Category: Spirited Away
Author: ReplaceWithSomethingWitty gave this fic to Me, LovinaHolmes
Language: English

Rating: Rated: T
Genre: Romance/Adventure

A/N: This fic was entrusted to me by my friend Replace with Something Witty. I wasn't aware of it but she used my name for one of her characters. She hadn't touched this story in ages, and as I was looking through some of her old bookmarks I came across it and when I asked her, she said, "Oh. Um. Well, I wrote stories on fanfiction but... You can finish them, if you want."

Which was weird. But then I saw this one and I liked the idea, and I agreed. So I'm going to redo and add on to Thunderstruck. It's not that good, sorry RWSW, but… I'll try.

Song to Play While Listening to This Chapter: Lion, by Rebecca St. James

Chihiro sighed to herself as she stared out the window at the storm. Lightning flashed and her radio crackled, changing to another channel. She reached to change it back, but the song that had come on made her stop.

It reminded her of Haku, of how she first met him. She had been a whiny little girl and he such a cold, distant boy. And yet he had become her best friend, saved her life, helped her survive. Others had told her that he was evil and sometimes even she had wondered. But in the end she had discovered the truth, and she clung to that truth even today.

Even so those days were like a dream now—the most realistic dream in the history of the world, but still a dream. She had learned so much, grown so much. How could a dream leave such a mark on someone? Only people, only spirits can touch a soul like Haku, Lin, No Face, Boh... Even Yubaba, had. Each had taught her something, helped her grow.

"Haku," Chihiro sighed as she gazed sleepily out across the storm covered woods. With a slow, lazy blink of her eyes she rested her cheek on her hand and leaned against the glass of the window. Her eyes unfocused and refocused on random things: a bird, flying against the wind; the whipping of a branch in the wind; the murky, misty barrier of magic between the Spirit and Human Worlds that blurred the lights of the Bathhouse. She could make them out, the twinkling lanterns, but only if she strained her eyes so much that they hurt.

Rubbing them, she looked down at the sketchpad in her lap. Hundreds of sketches of servant boys and dragons—no, a servant boy and a dragon—littered the page, surrounding a single dragon's head drawn in chalk. She gazed deep into its green eyes and recalled how they had glinted like cold steel in the elevator, how they had shown such warmth when he comforted her, how they had held such anguish, such hopelessness in them when he was close to death.

"Where are you?" she demanded bitterly, her voice breaking. "You promised, Kohaku." Her fingers stroked the lines of his round face, the way she remembered him that one time he had truly smiled. Chihiro bit her lip. He had promised her, he had been her friend; friends kept their promises... What had happened to keep him six years? Six years!

She looked back up at the window, sighing once more, and her eyes caught a glimpse of silver in the storm. When she had sat up in search of it, it had disappeared.

She would gladly have journeyed to a completely hostile world if he was there, to see him again. Indeed, she had already gone to a foreign world, of which she knew nothing, to see him. And he had shown her what it meant to hope. And she had used that lesson, and she hoped, every second of her life after that, that he would fulfill his promise. Even just to hear his voice…

Chihiro had hoped that he felt the same. But six years seemed too long, and she had begun to doubt.

And yet she still woke, and faced each day. He'd taught her that, and to never run from her problems. If you did, they'd only catch up and make you pay. He had taught her to fly; to live like there was no tomorrow. To never give up. That she could do anything she set her mind to doing. Life was like living in the lion's den, in the dragon's mouth; if you knew how to deal with things, it would treat you gently, like an angel.

So she still woke, faced each day, and hoped.

As her eyes strayed to the window once again, she saw the silver—and this time she shot up. In the process she knocked over the radio from the desk, but she paid it no mind. Her eyes were not deceiving her. She saw the familiar scales, horns, sea green mane. It was Kohaku. It was him!

Frantically she tried to open her window, putting one hand on the desk to steady herself but ending up putting it on the sharp end of an upturned pencil. It was like a pinch; she knew it wasn't a dream.

She felt a wind. Like the one that had pulled her into the Spirit World kicking and screaming, it flooded threw her room, dragging her drawings of dragons and boys into the air and whipping her hair about her face as it stretched into a rarely seen smile. He was finally fulfilling his promise.

Just as she managed to throw her window open a flash of lightning ripped the heavens, and she screamed.

He was falling.

Fast.